Indexing/Incoming links to trailing slash URLs?

How are URLs in the form of /dir/dir/index.htm handled?

[vich1]

I don't know how clear I was in the subject or description, but here is an example of what I'm talking about:

Actual page location:

[<domain>.com...]

which can be accessed thus:

[<domain>.com...]

In order to increase page rank, should the incoming link point to index.htm as in the first case or can it point to the second URL?

How does each case affect page rank?

Thanks very much,

Vic

[Birdman]

I would stick with #2 because it's more user-friendly and it should make no difference in the engines. Whatever method you choose, stick with it. You don't want half your links pointing to / and the other half pointing to /index.html.

I always use the default / myself.