In October 2003 I was ranked between #1 through #10 for keyword
Hummels, Hummel Figurines and Hummel Figurine.  In November 2003,
Google changed the ranking and since then my site has completely off
the board.  When I look at my backlinks, Google is picking up the URL
www.store.yahoo.com/jewelrywholesaleinc-store instead of
www.hummelsatadiscount.com which is more revelant to my site.  Also in
the Google Directory my site is listed as Jewelry Wholesale Inc with
the URL www.store.yahoo.com/jewelrywholesaleinc-store.  Is this
hurting my site as far as ranking in Google and if so how to get this
changed.  Or Is my site being penalized for some reason which is
affecting my rankings?
Thanks,

Greetings, whattodo!

Most Search Engines, especially Google, are quite secretive about
their inner workings, so it is not possible for anyone to say for
*sure* why your site has dropped in Google's Search Rankings.

Apparently Google recently tweaked and greatly improved the part of
their algorithm that recognizes duplicate sites, because there have
been several Questions similar to yours posted lately.

I am reasonably sure that it is indeed because the Googlebot has
recognized that it is identical to your Yahoo! Store site.

Important and popular domains like Yahoo and .gov sites will likely
take precedence over identical sites on other domains.

What's more, the Yahoo! site is the one that appears in DMOZ Open
Directory -- which Google uses as a guide to indexing websites,
because it is human-edited for quality -- so Google is definitely
going to see the Yahoo! site as more important.
http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Antiques_and_Collectibles/Figurines/Hummel


From the Google Information for Webmasters - Webmaster Guidelines:
"... Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with
substantially duplicate content..."
://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html


One thing that you can try is to write Frank Litts, the Editor of DMOZ's
Shopping: Antiques and Collectibles: Figurines: Hummel  Category
happymemories 
http://dmoz.org/profiles/happymemories.html
(Category Editors are listed at the bottom of the Category's page) 
and nicely request that he change your Yahoo! URL to your
http://www.hummelsatadiscount.com site URL.

Then e-mail the webmasters of the sites which link to the Yahoo! store
and request that they change the link to
http://www.hummelsatadiscount.com :
://www.google.com/search?q=%22%2Bwww.store.yahoo.%2Bcom/jewelrywholesaleinc-store%22&filter=0
(some of these sites pull their data directly from DMOZ, and will pick
up the DMOZ change on their own eventually)

Once the DMOZ change has been completed, you can resubmit your website
to be crawled by the Googlebot at
://www.google.com/addurl.html 

Then wait up to 30 days to see if the change filters through and
improves your site's ranking in Search Results.

******************
*** IMPORTANT! ***
***  HOWEVER   ***
******************
Right now your Yahoo! site is ranking 8th of 209,000 for 
Hummel figurines
://www.google.com/search?q=hummel+figurines

and 12th of 111,000 for
"Hummel figurines"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22hummel+figurines%22

That is an unbelievably fantastic Google Search Results ranking!!!

If you change your DMOZ listing and backlinks, it is quite likely that
the Yahoo! site will drop significantly in search results ranking,
while there is no guarantee that your other site will rise to take its
place (in fact, it's almost certain that it won't).

Do you really want to risk it?


My advice is to leave things the way that they are.

You've still got more than 2,000 pages indexed in Google which link to
your hummelsatadiscount site:
://www.google.com/search?q=%22%2Bwww.hummelsatadiscount.%2Bcom%22
which will drive traffic there, while your Yahoo! store's high
placement will drive traffic from Google searches to that site.

Before Rating my Answer, if you have any Questions about the above
information, please post a Request for Clarification, and I will see
what I can do for you.
  
Best Wishes,

aceresearcher

Nice information.