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Content strategy & maintenance

Hub page

A hub page is, in SEO, a page that collects links to the content on one topic. It has no connection to HubPages, the writing platform, or to SharePoint hub sites, which also appear in search results.

How does a hub page work?

A hub page sits between the navigation and the detail pages. It introduces the topic briefly and links to the related subpages. A category page “Women’s clothing” that links to its subcategories is a typical case. A pillar page, by comparison, carries comprehensive content itself (assessment, since the line is blurry in practice).

Google follows links that are <a> elements with an href attribute, and recommends that every important page gets a link from at least one other page on the site. A hub page can make sure all pages on a topic are linked, so no orphan pages arise (assessment).

Site architecture and click depthTree of a website: the home page is at depth 0, categories A and B at depth 1, three subcategories at depth 2, three products at depth 3. Product 1 is reached via the home page, category A and subcategory A1, and its breadcrumb shows that path. On the right is an orphan page that no internal page links to.Depth0Depth1Depth2Depth3Home pageCategory ACategory BSubcat. A1Subcat. A2Subcat. B1Product 1Product 2Product 3no linksOrphan pageno link points hereBreadcrumb on Product 1Home page › Category A › Subcat. A1 › Product 1Click depth = number of links from the home page. Google finds pages mainly through links.
Each level sits one click further from the home page. Google finds pages mainly through links and recommends that every page you care about gets a link from at least one other page on the site. The breadcrumb shows the page’s position in the hierarchy. Sources: Google Search Central: Link best practices for Google; Google Search Central: SEO Starter Guide; Google Search Central: Breadcrumb (BreadcrumbList) structured data.

Example

HTML
<h1>Technical SEO</h1>
<p>Overview of topics around crawling and indexing.</p>
<ul>
  <li><a href="/crawling/">Crawling</a>: how bots find pages</li>
  <li><a href="/indexing/">Indexing</a>: how pages enter the index</li>
  <li><a href="/robots-txt/">robots.txt</a>: controlling access to areas</li>
</ul>

Sources

  1. SEO link best practices – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
  2. Hub pages – IONOS Digital Guide (secondary)ionos.co.uk
  3. What is a hub page? – Loganix (secondary)loganix.com

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