Organize your intranet using subwebs

A subweb is a web nested inside another web. The web that contains a subweb is called the parent web, because it sits above the subweb in a hierarchical structure much like a family tree:

In the diagram above, Northwind is the root web; Marketing and Human Resources are subwebs of the Northwind root web; and Job Postings and Employee Benefits are subwebs of Human Resources.

You can create a subweb by converting a folder to a web, by importing a web into a folder and then converting the folder into a web, and by publishing one web to another as a subweb. A subweb initially inherits certain web settings (such as theme information and permissions) from its parent web. Use subwebs to organize your intranet logically based on your organizational model.

You can also use subwebs to limit access for security reasons. Because each subweb can have its own set of permissions for who can author, browse, or administer it, you can set up individual subwebs with different levels of permissions and different groups of users.

For example, you might set up different subwebs for marketing and human resources; within the human resources subweb, you might have different subwebs with different permissions for job postings, employee records, and employee benefits. Only recruiters could update the job postings subweb, but everyone in the company could browse it. Only human resources managers could browse and author the employee records subweb, while everyone in the company could browse (but not author) the employee benefits web.