linking to a specific directory & link popularity

[DoubleV]

my company sells through a network of distributors and it seems like one way to hopefully increase our link popularity is to make sure all of our distributors link to our web site through theirs. the thing is, when they link to our web site, they do not link to a www.domain.com, but rather to www.domain.com/directory_name/
so will this still count as an inbound link to our web site at www.domain.com ?

[french dread]

Concerning Google PR is given to a page and not a website. So the page linked by your customers should have a popularity increase.
But as this page links to other parts of the website, the whole website will benefit from it, the Pr being partially "transmitted" to other pages.
Linking to a page can imho be more benefitting than linking to a domain when the linked page is content rich.