Topic cluster
One broad hub page plus focused articles on its subtopics, all interlinked, so a site reads as the authority on one subject.
See it
What it is
A topic cluster is one broad pillar page covering a subject end to end, plus a set of narrower articles that each take one subtopic in depth. The pillar links out to every cluster page, and every cluster page links back to the pillar. HubSpot popularized the model in 2017, and it stuck because it maps to how engines actually read a site: coverage and interlinking, not one page stuffed with keywords.
Reach for it when you want to own a subject rather than a phrase. The structure builds topical authority, gives every new article an obvious home and an obvious set of internal links, and stops pages fighting each other because each one owns a distinct reader need rather than a rephrasing of its neighbour.
Gotcha: clusters rot when subtopics overlap. If two cluster pages answer the same question with different titles, you have built cannibalization with extra steps. Draw the boundaries by need, not by query count. One good page usually answers several closely related questions, and that is a feature. Split when the underlying needs or the formats that win them genuinely conflict, not just because two phrasings exist. Second trap: a pillar that is only a table of contents is thin content. It has to stand alone as the best single overview of the subject, with the links living inside real editorial sentences rather than a dumped list at the bottom.
Ask AI for it
Design a topic cluster for [subject] aimed at [audience]. Give me one pillar page plus 8 to 12 supporting articles. For each row: working title, the reader need it owns (stated as the job the page does), the related questions it can answer under that one job, the primary query, and the 2 to 3 sibling pages it should link to with suggested descriptive anchor text. Rules: no two pages may serve the same need, and only split a need across pages when the user goals or the winning result formats actually conflict; the pillar must work as a standalone overview, not a link list; order the supporting articles by what I should publish first based on how winnable each one is. Flag any existing page of mine that a new one would overlap with.