Sitemaps are a must if you want the major search engines to know about your website. Every site should have a sitemap.xml file in the root directory, wrapped up nice and neat for the web spiders that come a knocking.
A good place to learn about sitemaps is on sitemaps.org. Once you have determined that you need to implement a sitemap, you will want to create an account on Google.com. This will grant access to a section called Webmaster Tools in Google. As part of your account, you have the ability to notify Google directly, when you update your sitemap. Google will then send a crawl to the site, and updates will occur more quickly than just waiting for a crawl. There are several other tools within this section that will help improve your sitemap, as well as the content of your site. Definitely worth a peek.
I have been tinkering with sitemaps for a few years now. I have found several techniques for implementing sitemaps that I will discuss in a future blog. There is a way to automate your sitemap submissions using the links I will include below. You of course will substitute your domain within the link, and you can automate your sitemap submissions.
*http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=*
*http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ping?sitemap=*
*http://webmaster.live.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=*
Be sure to include the absolute url to your sitemap file, ie; http://www.sgprofl.net/sitemap.xml.
Check out some of the other major search engines, some have different requirements for automated sitemap submissions. Optimizing your content can not be stressed enough. Spamming sitemap submissions will not get you to the top of the heap.
;P