SharePoint Hub Sites connect multiple sites into one structure — shared navigation, shared branding, and search that spans the hub and everything associated with it. Useful for grouping sites by department, project, or business unit without merging them into one giant site.
In this post: What the structure looks like · Key concepts · Setting it up with PowerShell · When would you actually use this? · Best practices
What the structure looks like
A hub site is the parent; associated sites inherit its navigation bar and branding automatically. For example, a “Corporate HQ” hub might connect a Marketing team site, a Sales team site, a company-wide communication site, and a project site for a specific initiative — each keeps its own content and permissions, but shares the same top-level navigation and search scope.
Key concepts
- Association: team/communication sites link to a hub to join its framework.
- Navigation: a unified nav bar gets added to associated sites automatically.
- Branding: shared theme and logo across every linked site.
- Search scope: search spans the hub and all associated sites together.
- Flexibility: sites can be reassociated to a different hub later if org structure changes.
Setting it up with PowerShell
Registering a hub requires SharePoint Administrator or Global Administrator rights — a regular site owner can’t turn their own site into a hub, though they can request to associate an existing site with one if the hub’s owner has allowed join requests. The actual setup is three commands:
Connect-SPOService -Url https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com
# Register a site as a hub
Register-SPOHubSite -Site https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/CorporateHQ
# Associate another site to that hub
Add-SPOHubSiteAssociation -Site https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/Marketing -HubSite https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/CorporateHQ
# Check what's currently associated with a hub
Get-SPOHubSite | Select-Object Title, SiteId, IDReassociating a site later just means running Add-SPOHubSiteAssociation again pointed at the new hub — there’s no need to remove the old association first, the site simply moves.
SharePoint doesn’t support nested hubs — it’s a flat, one-level structure, and worth knowing before you plan around it.
When would you actually use this?
- Multiple department sites need consistent branding and cross-site search without merging into a single unwieldy site.
- Users are complaining they can’t find content that they know exists somewhere in “one of the team sites” — hub-scoped search fixes exactly this.
- A new initiative needs its own site but should still feel connected to the parent department’s site, not orphaned.
Best practices
- Give each hub a clear, specific purpose — a department or a defined initiative, not “everything.”
- Don’t over-create hubs — too many dilutes the point of having a unified structure in the first place.
- Set governance rules for who can create/associate sites before it sprawls.
- Check hub analytics periodically to see whether the structure still matches how people actually use it.
Two real limitations worth knowing upfront: SharePoint doesn’t support nested hubs (it’s a flat, one-level structure), and reassociating a site to a different hub can temporarily disrupt navigation for anyone using it. Plan the structure with that in mind rather than discovering it after the fact.
Hope that was useful — comment below if you hit any snags.
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