A hub site is a SharePoint site that other sites associate with. Hubs share navigation, theming, news, and search across all their associated sites. Done well, hubs turn a sprawling tenant into a navigable intranet. Done badly, they create circular navigation and confused ownership.
What a hub gives you
- Shared navigation: a single hub-level menu appears across every associated site
- Shared theme: consistent colours, fonts, and logos across the hub family
- Aggregated news: news from any associated site rolls up to the hub home page
- Hub search: searching from the hub scopes results to all associated sites
- Site directory: a built-in listing of associated sites
What a hub does not give you
- Permissions inheritance: associating a site with a hub does not change its permissions
- Content inheritance: documents and pages do not flow between hub and associated sites
- Single ownership: each site keeps its own owner and lifecycle
When to use a hub
Hubs work well for:
- A department with multiple project or team sites
- A function (HR, Finance, Legal) with multiple sites that need shared branding
- A regional or business-unit grouping that needs its own intranet identity
- A community of practice spanning multiple teams
When not to use a hub
- Just 1 or 2 related sites: navigation links are simpler
- Sites that do not share an audience: aggregated news becomes noise
- Sites with conflicting branding requirements: shared theme will frustrate one party
Hub planning checklist
- Pick a clear hub home (usually a Communication site, not a Team site)
- Plan the hub navigation before associating sites
- Agree the theme with the parent function
- Document the criteria for sites to associate (and disassociate) with the hub
- Name a hub owner accountable for the family
Associating a site with a hub
On the site you want to associate, go to Settings > Site information > Hub site association. Pick the hub. The site immediately inherits the hub navigation, theme, and search scope.
Limits
A tenant supports up to 2,000 hub sites. There is no fixed limit on the number of sites you can associate with a single hub. Most organisations never come close to 2,000. The practical limit is the hub navigation: keep it under 20 top-level items.
Hubs of hubs
A hub can be associated with another hub, allowing 2 levels of hierarchy (sub-hub and parent hub). Use sparingly. Two levels are usually plenty.
For hub design and intranet architecture, submit a support ticket.
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