ok i want to submit my site to the search engines, i have done significant reading on s.e.o. and certain sources seem to believe that submitting your site will actually hurt your rating. they suggest that instead you should build up the number of links pointing to your site and in doing so the spiders will find and index your site on their own. is this fact or fiction? i would be curious to know which path i should follow. Thanks a ton!

Link building. I've heard that submitting your site can hurt your rankings, but it doesn't really matter as long as you have links pointing to your site. The search engine will find your site eventually, and if your site has a lot of backlinks, you'll be fine.

i believe the "submit and your rank will go down" might be because your rushing the process, and not letting links build up towards you, otherwise its found via a link and other links are discovered, and your rank is higher

does anyone know how long it will be before my site is indexed if i don't submit it, but rather allow the bots and spiders (and garden gnomes), to find it on their own?

Before you submit in any search engine, ensure that your site is already been in the search engine site. Do not re-submit it, else it's a spam (!) Especially for Google

this the first ive heard about submission hurting your rank, can someone point in the direction of some reading material as i am about to launch about 30+ sites for a client and he wants to be at the top of the results.

cheers,
Matt

Get a site that's established and indexed frequently to link to your site. That way you'll be spidered quickly, and indexed within weeks.

Submitting via addurl or some (dodgy) software is of little or no benefit. I don't know if it's "harmful" per se, but it is unlikely to result in anything much.

I put a site up around a week ago and submitted to search engines via CPanel, page has already been hit by Google and top key word search brings it up at NO: 6 on Google