What does COUNT(1) actually count?
if you put count(*), count(1) or count("test") it will give you the same result because mysql will count the number of rows, for example:

select count(fieldname) from table;


will display the same result that

select count(*) from table;


or 

select count(1) from table

mysql&gt; select * from language;
+-------------+----------+---------------------+
| language_id | name     | last_update         |
+-------------+----------+---------------------+
|           1 | English  | 2006-02-15 05:02:19 |
|           2 | Italian  | 2006-02-15 05:02:19 |
|           3 | Japanese | 2006-02-15 05:02:19 |
|           4 | Mandarin | 2006-02-15 05:02:19 |
|           5 | French   | 2006-02-15 05:02:19 |
|           6 | German   | 2006-02-15 05:02:19 |
+-------------+----------+---------------------+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql&gt; select 1 from language;
+---+
| 1 |
+---+
| 1 |
| 1 |
| 1 |
| 1 |
| 1 |
| 1 |
+---+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql&gt; select 'anything'from language;
+----------+
| anything |
+----------+
| anything |
| anything |
| anything |
| anything |
| anything |
| anything |
+----------+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql&gt; select count(1), count(*), count('anything') from language;
+----------+----------+-------------------+
| count(1) | count(*) | count('anything') |
+----------+----------+-------------------+
|        6 |        6 |                 6 |
+----------+----------+-------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)


the result will be a number equal to the number of rows of that table.

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT NULL FIELDS WILL NOT BE COUNTED....

mysql&gt; select original_language_id from film where original_language_id is null;
+----------------------+
| original_language_id |
+----------------------+
|                 NULL |
|                 NULL |
|                 NULL |
|                 NULL |
|                 NULL |
|                 NULL |
|                 NULL |
......
|                 NULL |
+----------------------+
1000 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql&gt; select count(original_language_id) from film where original_language_id is null;
+-----------------------------+
| count(original_language_id) |
+-----------------------------+
|                           0 |
+-----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)


FOR THAT REASON IF YOU WANT TO COUNT ROWS I THINK count(something) is a good option

mysql&gt; SELECT COUNT(1) FROM film;
+----------+
| COUNT(1) |
+----------+
|     1000 |
+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)