GoogleBaseXML and 1000 products google timeout 503

Hey,
I am using GoogleBaseXML for some time now without any problem. But now Google is giving me 503 time out errors if the feed takes to long. Especially with some product categories with more then 1000 products. Is there a way to speed up the process besides using Limit and splitting up into batches of for instance 500 records?

If it was working before without problems I would look first at preventing the 503 time-out errors before anything else.

You could try optimizing your tables, if you have a lot of products it might improve the efficiency with which they are read, see http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/optimize-table.html . If you try anything like that, make sure you have a backup first.

You could also try increasing the script timeout in your php.ini, use the max_execution_time setting, see what it is currently then try increasing it.

Also if you are using a scheduled upload (which sounds as if it is the case), make the time when you site is likely to be less busy.

But to be honest it might be none of these. If you site is getting a lot of traffic from bots and other annoyances, that might be slowing it down, you could try blocking unwanted visitors.

If you can't figure out what the problem is, then the only thing is to start splitting the feed I think.