claaarky - 1:59 pm on Jun 28, 2012 (gmt 0)

When you say natural, how were they obtained and what sorts of volumes are we talking about?

I do know someone who was penalised after running a press release with links in it which took off. On the face of it that might seem natural as in people loved the article, but if those links didn't drive traffic to the site Google might think, hmmm, better let this chap know this is a pointless exercise - you're not getting any traffic and you made it happen. Stop doing it.