I have a question about a site I'm developing. It is a database driven directory site where people can make a profile and list themselves in one or many area codes and in one or many fields of work. When someone is looking for a person to hire, they enter one or more area codes to look in (or select them with checkboxes) and when the form submits, it saves these as a cookie so the site remembers what location you were searching in. You then narrow down your search by category and field (which are links) and get a listing of all the profiles that match your search.

What I am concerned about is this: because a search engine can't type in or select area codes to search in, how is it going to find and index any of the profile pages? It doesn't allow the user to search for people without first selecting an area code, because there's no practical purpose to do so. There would also be no practical purpose from a user experience/usability standpoint of simply having a list of each area code as a link to the categories page, but as far as I know, isn't that the only way for search engines to see every person?

How does a site like Facebook accomplish this? There isn't some sort of master directory with a link to ever single Facebook user's profile page, and yet they're often the #1 search result for a person's name.