Is it just me or does this happen every time you accumulate links too fast. Google takes forever to index your pages.

I know some say it's the sandbox but some also say this doesn't exist. I'm at a loss for words.

It depends on how many links.... I mean it would be pretty dumb on Google's part, or any search engines part, to penalize based on just the amount of links you have for x amount of time. Many things can occur naturally that cause this. Major news that gets pushed on all the major sites on the internet. This happens almost daily.

I just don't see how it could hurt.

There are times when we have a very big story posted to the DaniWeb blogs, at which time we're Slashdotted, and Digg'ed, and are syndicated on lots of sites all within a day or two, and then the number of new links coming in daily dies down back to normal. I have never experienced any negative side effects to that.

I do believe in the sandbox for new sites, I dont think getting links too quickly matters.

I try to think like Google engineers and ponder how I would write the various algorithms that sort good from bad.

I wouldn't care if you got a ton of links in a short duration. All I would care about is if they were natural links. If you get 100 links in one month and 90 of them link to your forum home page with very similar anchor text, then I know you're trying to manipulate the results. However, if you get 100 links in that month to all areas of your site with vastly different anchor text, then I can put greater weight on those links being valid votes for your site's content.

You bring up a good point, David.

In the past, I have had people submit my site to directories, but I no longer do that. I still submit to directories, but I do them myself and submit several different links. For a forum, I like to submit links to each individual forum.

This is also why I like the blogesque features on my forums that get me many links on other blog sites for individual threads/posts.

Interconnecting your forum with like forums and blogs doesn't bother you? You won't worry about members and guests going elsewhere?

If you are talking about the Linkback system VBSEO has then I don't worry about it. IMO you do your job building a good community then you have nothing to worry about. If anything I think the linkback system helps encourage others to link to you.

Just my theory though.

Doesn't bother me a bit.

Good to hear. As i'm of the opinion that interconnecting forums with various applications is going to be the next hot thing. In fact, even Yahoo is working on it.