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The sites in the Google Directory are sorted purely according to the PageRank of the listing. How well the site turns up in a keyword search is not relevant. You may want to consult the WebmasterWorld Google Knowledgebase (http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2829.htm ) to learn more.
Regardless of what you do on your web pages, Google must recalculate their PR, then apply the new rankings across all its data centers. They do not seem to do this as frequently with the directory as opposed to the search engine; for instance, the listings themselves were only refreshed two or three times in 2003 even though the XML source is updated weekly.