BigDave - 5:43 pm on Oct 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

I think that the "too many links at once" filter probably works a bit differently than many think.

Think "trust" in relation to the link source.

If you get a lot of links from trusted sources all at once, you will be considered news. If all your links are from sites tagged as link sellers or link traders, it will be flagged as spam at the worst, and slow credit at best.

There is lots of in between ground when you get a variety of trust in your links.

Subjects that are hot on the political blogs will bring you a lot of links right now. Some from "trusted" news sources, some from bigger name blogs, some from fora, and some from personal blogs.

While there will be a lot of less trusted links, those extremely trusted links should trigger them to consider your spike a valid and important one. The trusted links going into your page will raise the trust in those other links.