MYSQL Multiple table optimization for advanced search

I have a users table where there is the basic information of each user: CREATE TABLE users ( user_id int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, account_type varchar(10) NOT NULL, email varchar(255) NOT NULL, password varchar(500) NOT NULL, registration_date timestamp NULL DEFAULT NULL, account_status tinyint(2) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0', PRIMARY KEY (user_id) ) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=1 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 On the other hand, I have a `user_data' table in which we put every other data: CREATE TABLE user_data ( data_id int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, user_id int(11) NOT NULL, name varchar(50) NOT NULL, value text, PRIMARY KEY (data_id) ) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=1 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 Basically, the data is stored as a name => value I fetch the data in the following fashion: SELECT email, ud_desc.value as description, ud_lang.value as language FROM users JOIN user_data as ud_desc ON ud_desc.user_id = users.user_id AND ud_desc.name = 'description' JOIN user_data as ud_lang ON ud_lang.user_id = users.user_id AND ud_lang.name = 'language' I made that second table this way because there is a ton of different data for each user, certain depending on their users.account_type. Also my client keeps adding, removing and changing different kinds of data all the time. So I needed something quite flexible and this is the best idea I came up with so far, from a developer point of view. Because I fear that this so called "best idea" is just a faint dream and will be too slow on the long term. Knowing that I might have to perform LIKE and MATCH AGAINST queries on the large volume of data that user_data will hold. Also, you might take note that I am not very familiar with indexes. But at this point, I have no idea what is the most efficient, given that the data is fetch based on two columns user_data.user_id and user_data.name. Should I make both of those columns (user_id and name) indexes? Should user_id be a foreign key (for the users table JOIN)? Is there a way to improve either my database model or my queries? I thank you all in advance. I am a bit lost at the moment and need some fresh points of view on this matter. Don't hesitate to tell me if you need more details.