Sudden Appearance of Backlinks

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Hi,

We recently lost a client because they dropped from Page 1 (organic) to Page 3 and I couldn't get them back. I tried everything but just couldn't get them back. All this while they were #3 on Local. This client had been with us for several years and although I only started doing SEO a year ago, previous staff had created listings for them. However, none of those listings ever showed up in Open Site Explorer or Backlink Watch, some showed up in Webmasters. They existed because I checked/updated many of them.

Then they left us and boom, 2 months later, they are back on Page 1 organically (still #3 on Local) and now all the links to the site show up on Backlink Watch and Open Site Explorer.

Has anyone experienced anything like this before?

Thanks