Thank you for all the info. I have been following this thread and will check out all of the information posted when I can next focus on this project (probably tomorrow).

Question - does not Google (and Yahoo) now penalize you if you're doing backlink checks, especially using automated software? I understood that they have started to do this to "make better use of their bandwidth" etc.

PS - I think the reason my Dog Kennel/Training website is sanboxed was coz I was adding the links all at once... that's my current guess. You have to add only a few links per day/week but do so on a consistent basis, perhaps this is more stringent for less competitive-keyword sites, coz Google knows they are supposed to have only a certain level of web presence. That's my current guess anyways...

~Wingnut