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Over the last year or two Google has exploded with new features for webmasters who utilize its services. But with all the changes, what impact is it having on the webmasters who rely on having their sites show up in Google searches?

Lets say you build a website surrounding a particular product or service and have a targeted audience segment for online buyers. Youve done your homework and found that the competition is moderate at best. After some well planned SEO work and a little marketing you are all set to see how your site is positioned on Google. Take into consideration that you are not ready to spend a lot of money on adWords until you see some results from your SEO work.

Ok, heres the kickeryour website doesnt even exist on Google for weeks or maybe even months. Have all the changes to Google's infrastructure hindered the ambition or motivation of webmasters? Or, has it given new respect to patience and planning? With new tools such as Google Documents and Spreadsheets, Maps, Video, Checkout, and webmaster tools such as Base, Sitemaps, and Analytics, web surfers have all kinds of tools available to make the web a more interesting and productive place.

Many webmasters already know that getting listed in Open Directories is beneficial. But while youre waiting on Google to index and crawl your website, you might as well go ahead and list your web URL with DMOZ. DMOZ is slowly becoming a trouble spot with those interested in getting their site listed. There are documented articles of people who have waited over 2 years to get their websites listed on DMOZ. Are they that busy? Should they hire more editors, or just more efficient ones? If this directory takes so long to get into, and is a prime source for all major search engines, what are we to think? Are webmasters losing out because of the delay? Is it still as valuable as it once was? Many webmasters who frequent SEO forums are speaking up and stating that its not worth the wait anymore. Will this be a wake-up call to DMOZ? Lets hope. Its time to make a decision and get things going.

Case in point, I own a website which has been in existence for 5 months. It has been properly built following standardized SEO practices. Oddly enough, it appears on Google, Yahoo and MSN when searching for "portal deployment", but has yet to get listed in DMOZ. It has been submitted weeks ago, but knowing the turn-around time, it may not get listed for months or close to a year from now. Let me remind you that the SEO practices followed were "organic", no fancy or expensive outsourcing took place. So why the listing difference? Google noticed the site and has even picked up the changes to the which happened weeks ago.

We all know the internet is growing at an exponential rate, hundreds of thousands of new domain names are registered each week, but shouldnt companies like DMOZ be more prepared to react to the growth? If youve followed the steps for successful SEO and havent seen the result, be patient. I do believe the DMOZ will snap to attention after more and more people complain about the long delay for getting their URL listed. If you have feedback on how to expedite the process of having your website crawled or listed on DMOZ let me know. Then share it with everyone else.

Tim Cambier has over 10 years of IT experience and has led the implementation of both open-source and packaged web portal deployements (http://www.webportal101.com). His experience migrating and managing intranets allows him to relate, and offer advice, on how to get things done.

He has published articles on web analytics (http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/cambier_disc.html) and creating your search engine (http://www.devx.com/webdev/Article/21909) as well as developed and sold his own internet start-up company. He is currently working to establish a website dedicated for web portal deployments and intranet redesigns.