Search and SEO
What is Topic cluster?
A topic cluster is a pillar page covering a subject broadly, surrounded by spoke pages each covering one part of it in depth, all internally linked. It signals topical coverage and distributes authority between related pages rather than leaving each to fight alone.
Also called: pillar and spoke · hub and spoke
The structure
- Pillar targets the broad head term and links down to every spoke
- Each spoke targets one specific long-tail term and links up to the pillar
- Spokes link across to at most two or three siblings, where genuinely relevant
- Every page in the cluster links onward to a commercial page
Why it works
It concentrates internal links on the pages that matter and makes coverage legible. A single article about technical SEO competes with everything; a pillar plus eight spokes covering crawling, rendering, indexation, schema and speed reads as a site that knows the subject.
The discipline that keeps it working
One primary keyword per URL, allocated in advance. Two spokes targeting the same term is cannibalisation, and it is far cheaper to prevent at planning time than to diagnose in Search Console six months later.
Where this is covered in depth
A definition can only go so far. The 35 types of SEO, explained without the padding covers this properly — 6 minutes, free, no email required.
Who wrote this
Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. These definitions come from client work rather than from a content brief — where an entry describes a mistake, it is usually one found on a real site. More about how I work.