Without knowing all the specifics

[Gary Golden]

Sandboxing, possibly but who is sandboxing who. In some cases it is the webmasters who has attempted to sandbox the search engines, they get a temporary rank increase but then all the sudden they are dropped.

So with a forum all that can be given is generalized information since obviously in most cases without knowing the full story you cannot possibly give the exact answer.

Personally I feel that sites with a history will and do get more preferential service than brand new sites. Though this is only the case if they properly optimize there site, if they don't then they are in the same boat as the newer sites.

Plain and simple newer sites will not see the fruits of there labor for some time unless they have a pocket book to pay for the placement of there sites.