Hub and Spoke

What Is Hub and Spoke?

The hub-and-spoke model is one of the most effective strategies for building topical authority with Google. Through the bidirectional linking between the overview page and specialized subpages, you signal to Google that you cover a topic comprehensively. Especially for glossaries, guides, and industry pages, this model leads to measurable ranking improvements for all pages involved.

Hub and Spoke is a content architecture model where a central hub page (the center) is connected to several thematically related spoke pages (branches). The model resembles the pillar cluster model: the hub page provides a comprehensive overview of a topic, and the spokes cover specialized subtopics. The bidirectional linking between hub and spokes signals a thematically coherent structure to Google.

The mechanism: the hub page is broader and less in-depth (e.g. “Digital Marketing — Overview”), while the spokes are more specialized and in-depth (e.g. “Email Marketing,” “Content Marketing,” “PPC Advertising”). Users and Google can navigate from the hub to the spokes and back. The signal to Google: “These pages belong together and cover related but different aspects of a topic.” This can strengthen the topical authority of all pages involved and lead to better rankings.

When implementing: choose a broad core topic for the hub. Identify 5–10 specialized subtopics for the spokes. Write the hub with an overview focus and link all spokes with meaningful anchor text. Make sure each spoke links back to the hub. From the user’s perspective, navigation should be clear — from hub to spokes and back. This model works particularly well for industry guides, glossaries, and topic overviews.