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How to design a content hub that earns topical authority. Pillar topic selection, cluster planning, internal linking architecture, URL structure, pillar and cluster page anatomy, topical authority signals for SEO and AEO/GEO, and the maintenance discipline that distinguishes intentional hubs from accidental orphans.
Passed 18 of 22 test cases with the skill, and 14 of 22 without it.
and 3 more in the full report
4 fixed14 passed either way4 still failing0 broke
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
One of 4 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
Our team has accumulated dozens of disconnected blog posts about 'B2B SaaS customer onboarding' that aren't gaining search traction. I need a hub restructuring blueprint. Please generate an audit and reorganization plan that identifies our central resource, categorizes existing articles into supporting roles, highlights missing subtopic coverage, and establishes clear rules for cross-linking and URL taxonomy.
| Checked | Without skill | With skill |
|---|---|---|
| The architecture plan structures the hub into two tiers consisting of one main pillar page and supporting cluster pieces without intermediate sub-hub levels. | Missed | Passed |
| The URL taxonomy specifies subfolder paths under the topic root like '/customer-onboarding/cluster-slug/' instead of '/blog/'. | Missed | Passed |
| The central resource page outline includes a 150-to-250-word TL;DR executive summary section. | Missed | Passed |
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
A senior content architect's playbook for designing content hubs that earn topical authority.
Most content programs accumulate accidentally. Pieces ship one at a time, internal linking happens (or does not) in editing, similar topics get covered by multiple pieces with no coordination, and six months later the team has a content set that looks like a sitemap but feels like a yard sale. Search engines see disconnected pages; AI engines see scattered citations; readers cannot tell which piece is the entry point and which is the reference.
This skill is the discipline of intentional hub architecture. It assumes you have decided which topic areas to invest in (see content-strategy) and have keyword data (see seo-keyword). It does not write any individual piece (see content-brief-authoring for per-piece work and content-and-copy for execution). What it does is design the structure: which topic gets a pillar, which subtopics get cluster pieces, how the pieces link to each other, where they live in the URL hierarchy, and what topical authority signals the architecture is engineered to produce.
When to use this skill: launching a new content hub, restructuring an existing content set into a hub, deciding whether a piece should be a pillar or a cluster, or auditing why a content area is not ranking despite individual piece quality.
This skill spans hub-level content architecture. It composes with five sister and adjacent skills, and the distinction between them is what keeps each one sharp.
content-strategy is program-scope: multiple topic pillars, editorial calendar, governance, formats. Decides what topic areas to invest in across a quarter or year.seo-keyword is upstream-input: keyword research that surfaces candidate pillar topics with volume, difficulty, and intent data.content-brief-authoring is per-piece scope: brief for one content artifact. Each cluster piece (and the pillar itself) gets briefed via that skill.content-and-copy is execution scope: writing the piece itself.seo-content-gap-audit is audit-side: finds missing pieces in an existing content set after the fact. This skill prevents the gaps; that skill catches the ones that emerge.The clean composition: content-strategy decides which topics, seo-keyword surfaces opportunities, this skill designs the hub, content-brief-authoring briefs each piece, content-and-copy writes each piece, seo-content-gap-audit later catches what slipped. Six skills, sequential.
The audience: SEO content strategists, content architects, in-house teams designing content hubs, agencies running topical authority programs. The voice is senior content architect to junior content marketer. Concrete, opinionated, honest about what makes a hub earn authority versus decorate the sitemap.
The keystone distinction. Three categories of content in any program.
Pillar. Comprehensive piece covering a major topic area. 2,500 to 5,000 words plus. Anchors the topical authority claim for the topic. Receives links from cluster pieces; links out to cluster pieces selectively, not as a footer dump. The pillar is the entry point for the topic and the reference the cluster orbits.
Cluster. Narrower piece covering a specific facet of the pillar topic. 800 to 2,000 words. Links up to pillar; may link sideways to other clusters in the same hub when a connection is natural. Each cluster answers one specific question within the pillar's scope.
Orphan. Piece that does not connect to a pillar or cluster. May rank or convert on its own merits, but does not compound into topical authority. Some orphans are fine by design (release-note pages, customer stories, one-off campaigns); most orphans are accidents.
The pathology. Most content programs are 80% orphans, 15% accidental clusters, 5% accidental pillars. The discipline is moving toward 70% intentional clusters, 20% intentional pillars, 10% standalone-by-design. Same total content volume; different architectural outcome.
test cases passed, vs 14 / 22 without
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