What is a SharePoint hub site?
Applies To
SharePoint in Microsoft 365A SharePoint hub site is a central hub that connects and organizes related sites based on organizational attributes such as project, department, division, or region. Associating a site with a hub site makes it easier to discover related content, news, and site activity across all associated sites. SharePoint hub sites give you:
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Shared navigation and brand
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Roll-up of content and search
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A home destination for the hub
Planning your SharePoint hub sites ensures you get the most out of using hub sites.
Notes:
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You must be a SharePoint administrator to create a SharePoint hub site by converting an existing site. SharePoint administrators also determine how many hub sites can be created in your organization, who can associate sites with each hub site, and whether associating a site to a hub requires approval.
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Site owners can associate a SharePoint site with a hub site that already exists. Sites created by selecting the Create site link in the top right corner of a hub site will automatically be associated with that hub site.
In this article:
Shared hub navigation and brand
When you associate your site with a SharePoint hub site, your site inherits the look (theme) of the hub site. The hub site navigation bar appears at the top of your site, and more features or settings may be added such as additional navigation links, applications, or custom lists with specific columns. If you are the hub site owner, you can customize this navigation bar and can choose to use the mega menu layout.
Important: It can take up to 24 hours for the hub navigation changes to be reflected for all users.
Search across the hub
When you search from a SharePoint hub site, content on the hub site itself and from any associated sites are returned in the search results. Viewers will only see content for which they have access to.
Roll up content from associated sites with web parts
When a SharePoint administrator creates a hub site, they're converting an existing SharePoint site to a hub site. A hub site navigation bar appears at the top of the site, but the home page and all site contents will remain the same. To get the most out of your hub site, you as the site's owner may want to add the following web parts to the home page:
News roll-up
News published on a hub site and on any associated sites is automatically aggregated and shown on the home page of the hub site by using the News web part. You can choose which associated sites display news on the hub site home page and viewers will only see news for sites they have access to. Selecting a news article link takes you to the site on which the article was published.
Associated sites
Display the most active sites associated with the hub site on the home page by using the Sites web part.
Highlighted content
Use the Highlighted content web part to dynamically display content from sites associated with the hub site on the home page.
Events
Use the Events web part to dynamically display events from sites associated with the hub site on the home page.
Sites associated with a SharePoint hub site don't inherit the permissions of the hub site by default. Users who have permissions to the hub site but not to the associate site don't see any content from the associated site. Hub owners can enable hub site permissions sync to push visitors to associated sites. With that said, each site, including the hub site, will retain their current permission settings. This means that users' existing permissions to the hub site and each associated site aren't changed.
Ready to create a SharePoint hub site or associate a SharePoint site with an existing hub site?
Planning your SharePoint hub sites
Create a hub site in SharePoint Online
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