301 to the root or internal pages?

301 redirect, multiple domains

[centreurope]

Hi,
I've got 10 domain names that are < city names >. All contain only one parking page and are indexed by google.

I would like to 301 redirect those domains to a central domain, which will contain 10 pages, one for each city. What is best in terms of SEO? Do I need to 301 redirect each page to the < domain root at example.com, or to example.com/city.html >?

From my previous experience, 301 redirecting to the root gave more impact than to individual files, but I am not really sure.

Many thanks in advance.
david

[edited by: tedster at 8:54 pm (utc) on July 1, 2007]
[edit reason] made the information more generic [/edit]

[g1smd]

If the content at one URL has moved to a new URL, then set up the 301 redirect to point to that specific URL.

[centreurope]

thanks for this answer,
I thaught that doing all the 301 towards the root would give more strength to the destination domain. And hence to its internal pages.
I've noticed that when I have 10 weak domains that deal with similar topics, grouping them into one website allows (a little) more traffic from Google from the new domain than what it used to be with the 10 other before. It appears that the new domain is stronger and then ranks higher in SE.
And when I do the redirect to individual pages, I'm not sure that any strength is transmitted to the new domain.

[g1smd]

I see the 301 as being for content that has moved. There is no way that your red widget page has moved to the same URL that the blue widget page has moved to, and for that matter the same page as the green and yellow one, and all your various gadget pages, and all your doodads, and so on... That just seems wrong.

I think Google will treat one-to-one and many-to-one redirects in different ways.

[centreurope]

thanks g1smd,
what you say seems very logical. However, 301 redirect from different domains to one destination works, and even when topics are different. That is the one of the tricks that is used to win SEO challenges. I use it a lot with my blacklisted domains, and the result is almost always satisfactory (I don't have anything to loose, as the original domain is blacklisted and I have never been abl to de-blacklist my domains, although I tried everything possible).
Does anybody know if "strength" is transferred to the destination domain as well with a 301 to internal page as it is with a 301 to the root?
thanks
david