My cane search results for my best phrase were on page 2 for many months, then I added the band links with the name of the band:
Seventh Victim (also the name of a movie)
About two days later the results went to 5th page, and then back to
2nd page again when I removed the words victim, about a week later.
Now I'm on bottom of first page.
Lucite Canes is the phrase, clear canes . com is the site.
microphone page. I have a PR3 or PR4 for all pages except band page with a
PR2. The changes in search results just seem to coincide with listing of that word. The band link has a PR1.

many times the changes in search results and rankings have more to do with algorithm tweaks than they have to do with what we do to our sites.

Yes, but it was too coincidental. Position was stable for 8 months at page 2, then went to page 5 a couple/ few days after I made that one change. Then back to page 1 or 2 a couple days a couple/ few days after I dropped the word victim. I'm tempted to try putting the word "victim" back on, as a test, because the rock band is not too keen on me sort of changing the name.

Google doesn't store the full text of your page, just the most critical phrases. I'm not sure how they determine which ones those are, but I know that on some pages I've written, I could search for one phrase on the page and get it to appear on google, but entering another phrase on the same page would produce no results. My guess (and it is *just* a guess) is that google regarded "seventh victim" as a critical phrase and bumped another phrase off your list to accommodate it, or something of that nature.