tedster - 11:40 am on Dec 21, 2008 (gmt 0)

All I can say is the longer you wait the slower your recovery can be. a lot depends on your history, how frequently googlebot has been spidering and so on. If you can get back online stably in 48-72 hours, that would be best.

Think more like Google does - they don't want to give their users a poor experience. But they do want to give them the best sites they can. If Google decided your site should get lots of traffic, there's something here that they liked.

I suggest you communicate through the "Reconsideration Request" in your Webmaster Tools account as soon as you know you are online and stable again.