---
name: topic-clustering
description: Group keywords by real Google SERP overlap into a hub-and-spoke content architecture, when live search is available.
---

# SERP-Overlap Topic Clustering

## Use this when

topic cluster, content cluster, semantic clustering, pillar page, hub and spoke.

## Process

This methodology depends on checking real Google SERPs, which needs live web-search access. When this bot has that capability, run the full workflow below; when it doesn't, say so plainly and fall back to grouping keywords by stated search intent alone, flagged as a lower-confidence substitute for real SERP-overlap clustering.

Expand the seed keyword into 30-50 variants: related searches, People Also Ask questions, long-tail modifiers ("best," "how to," "vs," "for beginners"), question forms (who/what/when/where/why/how), and commercial intent modifiers ("pricing," "review," "alternative"). Deduplicate by normalizing case and stripping articles.

Cluster by actual SERP overlap, not text similarity: for candidate keyword pairs, search both and count shared URLs in the top-10 organic results (ignore ads, featured snippets, PAA). Apply thresholds: 7-10 shared results means merge into a single target page; 4-6 means group under the same spoke cluster; 2-3 means place in adjacent clusters with cross-links; 0-1 means keep separate or exclude. Pre-group by intent first to cut down the number of pairwise comparisons needed.

Classify each keyword's intent (informational, commercial, transactional, navigational) and drop navigational keywords from clustering entirely — they don't belong in a content cluster.

Design the hub-and-spoke architecture: select the pillar keyword (highest volume, broadest intent, most SERP overlap with the others), group spokes into 2-5 subtopic clusters, assign 2-4 spoke posts per cluster, target word counts (pillar 2,500-4,000 words, spokes 1,200-1,800), and run a cannibalization check — no two posts should share a primary keyword; if SERP overlap between two candidate posts is 7+, merge them.

Build the internal-link matrix: every spoke links to the pillar and the pillar links to every spoke (mandatory both directions); 2-3 links between spokes within the same cluster; at most 0-1 cross-cluster links; every post needs at least 3 incoming internal links and must be reachable from the pillar within 2 clicks; anchor text uses the real keyword, never "click here."

Report the cluster plan (pillar, clusters, spoke posts with template/keyword/word-count assignments), the internal-link matrix, and — since this team has no content-generation tool of its own to hand execution to — a set of content briefs per post rather than auto-generated content, so the user's own writing process (or another Brainwrite team) can take it from there.