Link Placement - Google Credit

How to get credit for reciprocal link

[HotIce]

I am a newbe (site developer for 2 years), and I have a couple of questions about reciprocal linking and PR Rating in Google. I have a site that contains approximately 45 pages. If I want to potentially affect the Google PR rating for my home/main page:

1)Do I have to put the reciprocal link on the Main page, as well as making sure that my URL posted on the reciprocating site is pointed at the main page?

OR

2)Can I put the reciprocal link on a links/other page, and make sure that my URL posted on the reciprocating site is pointed at the main page?

Just looking at it logically, if my main page is getting indexed and the SE runs across a link to another page, it will follow that link and find the link back. Is this how the back links are discovered in Google?

I am assuming that if I have a link from my links page to a main page of a reciprocating site, and the main page of the reciprocating site does not have a reciprocating link, but it has the reciprocating link placed on some obscure page on their site, I an less likely to get the reciprocating credit.

[bnhall]

Most cross-linking is like this:

From my /links.html to their /
From their /links.htm to my /

Not sure what you mean by "credit" but Google definitely sees this as a valid link in or out.