correlation != causation (necessarily) could have been innocent reasons, an algo shift. it happens. sometimes you win the SEO lottery, sometimes they pull the

correlation != causation (necessarily) could have been innocent reasons, an algo shift. it happens. sometimes you win the SEO lottery, sometimes they pull the rug out. my own experience: roughly 3-5 years ago (don't remember off-hand) I woke up one day to learn that Google had listed me as the top search result, first page, for a particular combo of terms. I forget exactly what it was but it was something like "Java Python Flash Linux game developer" or whatever. I had learned about this from an out-of-the-blue client lead who emailed me. I was shocked when he said that's how he found me. I then went around to about a dozen different computers, different types, different geo locations in my state, both auth'ed and anonymous, and sure enough I always came up as top result, first page. It was... an awesome time to be taking on contract/consulting work, let me tell you. So many more leads coming in than before. Not enough hours in the week/month to help them, had to turn down otherwise interesting gigs. Then it came to an end. Rug pulled out. Woke up one day, rankings changed, no longer on top like that. Lesson (one anyway): that's a huge eyeball funnel. bazillions of people doing searches. even getting a tiny slice of it means tons of eyeballs stumbling upon you. quality is important, of course, being great at what you do, having the right leads, a good fit, avail, etc. But quantity? That has a quality of its own.