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Thanks George, I'll think I'll take your advice and hold off for now. Aaron

Those guest blogs were mostly created for the purpose of improving another site's PageRank and manipulating the search results. Even if they're not paid links they are links that were made with the intention of gaming Google.  If you remove the links or nofollow them and then file for reconsideration you'll get your penalty removed.

Hi Aaron If the website is new I would still encourage you to build a blog of articles on the site showing your expertise for the products the site is selling. Also share the articles in social media channels including Google+ by publishing snippets of each one (i.e. headline + intro) with a link through to read the full article on the website. Peter