I've read both sides of the story carefully. I have friends in web design and friendsand family who run similar small businesses, so I have more than a passing knowledge of the issues.
Solo built a website with multiple pages for $300, which is peanuts. Updates were billed at $25 per hour, which again is very little. Solo has to buy, renew and maintain equipment and software, pay for office space, pay health insurance, pay 15% Social security, and fund her own pension out of $25 per hour. That's a lot of overhead, as all my graphic and web design friends have found out the hard way.
In terms of the work, the claimant seems to be grasping at straws. There are many reasons for a website failing to maintain a first page ranking on Google. Google constantly tweaks its algorithms so that people can't win for long with SEO games. As Solo says, SEO really is an ever-changing art in itself and a specialist who stays on top of things is needed. Solo appears to have been quite forthright about what the claimant was paying for and what she wasn't paying for. Ebay is a massive presence; I'm sure the ads would have made a big difference as Love's Labradors would have essentially scored extra points from Google.
The design of the site does not bring traffic in itself. It just must function well for the customers who want to look at the dogs, the breeding, and credentials etc. Some website firms employing multiple people provide SEO but many do not - the client pays for SEO work elswhere and the designer applies it, or the expert with access to the site applies it. Again, Solo seems to have been pretty forthright about the issue. When you have a desperate client, a decent person will try to help with limited knowledge, but it certainly is't optimal.
Search rankings for a breeder will slip when competitors have dogs that win shows or owners who are judges etc. Breeders rise and fall and get stories in local papers or specialist magazines. Competitors take out Google ads or even local ads, or host a high-profile fundraiser for the local Humane Society, and that gets people searching for and clicking through to the site - which improves its rankings. Quality, impeccably-bred dogs become known in the industry and create a source of ongoing referrals and websearch.
The big thing to me is that Love's Labradors continued to work with Solo. After they stopped working together in 2015, Solo apparently did not pursue the unpaid invoice for $250 (which is 10 hours of work at $25/hr) through small claims court, as might have been the case. Having parted company and having had the freedom to find another website designer, the claimant then asked to come back as a client, presumably not having found anyone else she could work with. My guess is that she was trying to do too much for too little. This is very common and very understandable in the small business world.
If I were unahppy with my yard service - maybe he forgot to put weedkiller on and I've now got crabgrass - I'd simply find another yard service, not tell him he had to return everything I'd paid for the last five years, including the expensive chemicals and labor applied to my yard for 5 years.
While I sympathize with the claimant, who is clearly suffering financial difficulties in a precarious profession, I believe it's unreasonable to seek a total return of paid services and even more unreasonable to ask for an extra $5,000.
A friend who designed a site that wasn't paid for simply took down the site and blocked access until the bill was paid. I'd say it's pretty professional of Solo to offer to turn over the site and write off the unpaid invoice as a compromise settlement.
In my opinion, the claimant should accept the offer, remove negative remarks, and research a company that she can better work with. They will be able to adapt the existing site as instructed by her.
If the claimant doesn't feel she can do that, both sides should furnish contracts, emails etc. as supporting evidence. I'd like to see requests and agreements for industry-secific meta-tags, mobile/responsive site (which doesn't exactly come super-cheap) etc. If Solo was instructed and paid to perform a specific task and failed to deliver, that's a different thing.
The amount sought and the likelihood of success would probably not make it worthwhile to do three independent assessments of the work performed and the alleged reversal of the claimant's business (this is a common process of resolution). However, the claimant could pursue this in Small Claims Court, where Love's Labradors will be able to fully substantiate her allegations and Solo Web Solutions will be able to fully substantiate her work.