Do multiple backlinks from 1 website count as multiple links, or just 1?

Right on.

But since everyone is guessing...

I'm going to take a rational approach as how search engines should work in order for the links to receive a "fair" importance. They wouldn't be counted as 1 backlink but if they are repeated too many times (the same anchor text) and are always located in the same place in the page they are probably not very relevant to all the pages, thus losing importance. The PR of link's page is also to be taken into account.

 

They count as 1. Thats why three way links are preferred.

 

Logically, they must count as one.....

I mean, 100 posts on a page rank 7 blog.... certainly can't be equal to 100 PR7 backlinks from 100 different sites..........

But I bet the extra links count for anchor juice

 

if google suggests to add articles to article directories and get backlinks from them this means google counts 1000 backlinks as 1000 backlinks. but their strength may be lowered.

 

I think it counts all links across the page but it weighs them different. For every page on that domain that has PR it gives you a boost, so the more PR pages with your link on it - the more PR boost you're getting, I don't think there's a cap on it. But obviously I do think that multiple PR'd domains (not on the same host - ip's are checked remember) are worth more then a whole lot of links from the same PR domain.