Search engine

I am no in the process of building reciprocal links to increase visibility on my website. Once the link is put onto my site OR another site linking to me, how does Google etc find them? Is it completely automated? Must my site be crawled for links or something?
Also my links page is accessible from my home page via a flash button. I read somewhere that this might be a problem and that I should use a text link?
Any advise for a novice webmaster would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Andrew

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