-Fill out as many Google Base attribute fields as possible. This one isn’t brain surgery as Google tells merchants to do this. They even changed their directions to make it look like all of their attribute fields are required: “You are required to include these attributes for all of the items in your bulk upload file. If you do not have information available for an attribute, you may leave it out, but keep in mind that including as many attributes as possible will increase your items’ exposure in search results.” Well, in truth, you don’t have to include all the fields in your feed (bulk upload), but I guess it’s Google’s way of pushing merchants to enter as much information as possible. Personally, I just think it creates confusion, but as merchants won’t properly read the directions, just see Required Attributes, and freak out. Bottom line? Give Google Base as much information as possible.

-Google Checkout as ‘payment_accepted’ and Quantity. If you enter Google Checkout for the ‘payment_accepted‘ field, you must include the ‘quantity‘ field in your feed and enter a value in the field. If you have a ton of merchandise in stock, just put in a random value like 99. BTW, a lot of people have been confused by this (including myself – I had to check with Link @ ChannelAdvisor when I first ran into the problem) so Google Base recently explained the problem and changed the directions for the ‘quantity’ field.
-Google Base and PayPal as ‘payment_accepted’. Google Base does not accept PayPal and eBay does not accept Google Checkout (there was a whole tiff about this earlier in the year). However, because Google Base knows that so many merchants accept PayPal and will automatically put it in their ‘payment_accepted’ field, they accept the value and end up just stripping it out of the feed. And until Google Base tells merchants not to put PayPal in the ‘payment_accepted’ field, I think we’re all safe including it.

-Have fun with Google Base Custom Attributes. If you’re following the first suggestion of this post (fill out as many attribute fields as possible), it’s time to start using custom attributes. And get creative with the custom attributes. For example, everyone looks for Free Shipping offers over the holiday season. Why not create a custom attribute called ‘Free Shipping’ and just give it a value of ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. If Google Base works as it’s supposed to, a new refinement option should come up for your category of products called ‘Free Shipping’. Consumers will filter, and you’ll be the only merchant to show up (until word gets around). At the end of the day, Google Base’s ‘shipping’ field is too complicated. This is a quick way around it.

Disclaimer: All optimization strategies are suggestions and do not guarantee success. These are data feed optimization tactics I have used or others have suggested which I think everyone should at least think about, if not test.