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What are Hub Sites in SharePoint Online?

In an organization, a lot of sites grow with time. They can be team sites or newly introduced communication sites. So, it is difficult to manage the number of sites.

A hub site helps bring together team sites and communication sites, provides the capabilities to organize sites in a better way and also increases visibility and navigation among associated sites. Microsoft announced SharePoint hub sites, new building blocks of the intranet, to bring together related sites to roll up news and activities, to simplify search, and to create cohesion with shared navigation and look and feel. Ultimately giving your business the flexibility and agility to dynamically grow and respond to the changes in business, without rigid silos, and helping bind a more cohesive workforce moving forward in the same direction.

Let's look at some of the features advantages/features of a Hub site in SharePoint Online.

  • Hub sites bring your organizations’ team sites and communication sites together.
  • Hub sites display news, events and site activities across all the sites (both team sites and communication sites). Your users will be able to stay up-to- date with the latest news and events within one location.
  • When you search at a hub, you can automatically search from all the related sites. When you search at any sites which are joined, they will have the same search experience as the hub level. In short, the search experience will appear for the hub site as well as for all the team sites and communication sites joined to the hub site. Internally, a search scope is created which allows users to directly search for content within all the joined sites.
  • Hub sites display cross-site navigation, which means you will see a top navigation bar on the hub site as well as on all the joined sites (both team sites and communication sites). So, navigation to any site will be easier. Consistent navigation will always be there in any joined site as well as in hub sites.
  • When you join a team site or communication site under a hub site, the site inherits the look and feel, theme, and logo from the hub site level. All the joined team sites and communication sites will have the same consistent look and feel.

As an organization, you may need to change the site structure and contents within the sites for your business need. Hub sites will give you this flexibility to navigate easily. Hub sites can be created by a user with the SharePoint Administrator role in Office 365 admin centre or by using PowerShell and site owners can then join a team site or communication site under a hub site.

So if you are looking to get started with it, then check out our book "SharePoint Online Modern Experience Practical Guide". This book is a comprehensive guide that lets you explore the Modern features of SharePoint Online. Do check out, if it interests you.

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