Only Display Latest 10 Posts on Homepage and Nothing More – 2010 Theme

Try changing:

<?php if (  $wp_query->max_num_pages > 1 ) : ?>
                <div id="nav-below" class="navigation">
                    <div class="nav-previous"><?php next_posts_link( __( '<span class="meta-nav">&larr;</span> Older posts', 'twentyten' ) ); ?></div>
                    <div class="nav-next"><?php previous_posts_link( __( 'Newer posts <span class="meta-nav">&rarr;</span>', 'twentyten' ) ); ?></div>
                </div><!-- #nav-below -->
<?php endif; ?>

to:

<?php if (  $wp_query->max_num_pages > 1 & is_home() ) : ?>
                <div id="nav-below" class="navigation">
                    <div class="nav-previous"><?php next_posts_link( __( '<span class="meta-nav">&larr;</span> Older posts', 'twentyten' ) ); ?></div>
                    <div class="nav-next"><?php previous_posts_link( __( 'Newer posts <span class="meta-nav">&rarr;</span>', 'twentyten' ) ); ?></div>
                </div><!-- #nav-below -->
<?php endif; ?>

in loop.php

have you tried to simply remove the links to next/previous posts?

find it in loop.php of the original Twenty Ten theme:

from line 22:

<?php /* Display navigation to next/previous pages when applicable */ ?>
<?php if ( $wp_query->max_num_pages > 1 ) : ?>
	<div id="nav-above" class="navigation">
		<div class="nav-previous"><?php next_posts_link( __( '<span class="meta-nav">←</span> Older posts', 'twentyten' ) ); ?></div>
		<div class="nav-next"><?php previous_posts_link( __( 'Newer posts <span class="meta-nav">→</span>', 'twentyten' ) ); ?></div>
	</div><!-- #nav-above -->
<?php endif; ?>

and from line 170:

<?php /* Display navigation to next/previous pages when applicable */ ?>
<?php if (  $wp_query->max_num_pages > 1 ) : ?>
				<div id="nav-below" class="navigation">
					<div class="nav-previous"><?php next_posts_link( __( '<span class="meta-nav">←</span> Older posts', 'twentyten' ) ); ?></div>
					<div class="nav-next"><?php previous_posts_link( __( 'Newer posts <span class="meta-nav">→</span>', 'twentyten' ) ); ?></div>
				</div><!-- #nav-below -->
<?php endif; ?>

only my personal opinion:

search engines will only follow links within the blog;
if there is no link – there is no seo influence.

and if you have linked the post via categories, they will be found there as well.

imho, if the link with ‘home.com/page/6’ does not exist, it will not ‘dilute’ the search result.

image all the possible ‘blog’ search combinations, that will lead to the posts being shown by search.php – endless paths to get to the posts.

the only ‘real solution’ is to delete everything that is exeeding the 10 posts on the front.

there might be also the possibility to use robots.txt to add a lot of ‘nofollow’ paths

the link to ‘themeshaper’ does exactly what i suggested:
i does not show the links to next/prev posts on the front page;

these are still there if you type the right link, for instance:
http://themeshaper.com/demo/featuresite/?paged=2

on this page, you will find the next/prev posts links again.

ps:
if you want the excerpts on the frontpage in Twenty Ten, edit loop.php
(the folowing line apears twice; the second one more towards the end , line 132, is for ‘normal’ posts):

<?php if ( is_archive() || is_search() ) : // Only display excerpts for archives and search. ?>

and change it to:

<?php if ( is_home() || is_front_page() || is_archive() || is_search() ) : // Only display excerpts on home page and for archives and search. ?>

I’ve just realised something, the “Front page” is a singular page, so there’s nothing to page anyway (by default, the front page shows the content of a single page)..

If we’re dealing with the posts page, it makes sense the code didn’t work…

Change the above to..

add_filter( 'pre_get_posts', 'no_page_front' );
function no_page_front( $q ) {
	if( $q->is_posts_page )
	    $q->set( 'nopaging', true );
	return $q;
}