Bubzeebub - 4:22 am on Sep 2, 2012 (gmt 0)

I'm new to link development (outside of the regular link exchange of course). I saw someone build a site and within a month they had close to 300 backlinks and a high Alexa rank. Surely they used some program or "unnatural" method. What are the downsides of doing this? Also, what do you think of a program like Pligg or PHPdug? Thanks in advance!