Which is better - -Assume I have a 500 page site -Assuming page rank of the referring pages is all equal -Assuming I have 500 incoming links Is it better to have all the referring pages linked to the home page, or... -or- Is it better to have 250 of the referring pages linked to the home page and the other 250 linked to another page on the site -or- Is it better to have 100 of the referring pages linked to the home page and the other 400 linked to 4 other pages on the site (100 per page) _________________________
Link to whatever page is the most relevant for the linking page. If your site structure is right then it really doesnt matter, as your home page is going to be deemed the most important, and I am sure you are targeting more than one keyword, so your going to need to get the anchor text links pointing to whatever page your optimising tose links for.
I agree with OWG about pointing the links at the page most relevant to the anchor text, but I doubt that was really your question. I'm guessing your question was which arrangement will give you the best PR boost. In this case pointing all links at the home page will be best. The home page will them pass the PR it achieves down to all the other pages in the site if the site navigation is set up properly.
OK............. Ultimately its a question of strategy - my thinking was that if I have links pointing to the home page - a page linked to the home page -- and 3rd level pages that the pr might be stronger across the whole site -- and would get lower level pages (like forum posts) more attention in the serps. Considering I have a forum as well as regular web pages, I have alot of content floating around of various types and maybe I would get my site in the serps even more.