Google Says Hyphenated Domain Names Are Okay for SEO
SEJ piece by Roger Montti relaying a John Mueller (Google) confirmation that hyphenated domain names carry no SEO penalty. A small tactical SEO fact — and another instance of Google issuing the authoritative SEO answer (cf. google-guidance-seo-authority).
What Google said
On Bluesky, answering how many hyphens are acceptable, Mueller: “Occasionally we get questions about whether dashes in domain names are ok for SEO (they’re ok),” joking that Google has indexed domains with up to 61 hyphens. So: no algorithmic penalty for dashes.
The nuance (perception ≠ ranking)
Montti’s takeaway: technically fine, but SEOs still avoid hyphens for non-ranking reasons — harder to type (esp. mobile), spammy appearance, and trust perception. The penalty, if any, is in users’ heads, not the algorithm. Real-world proof points: mercedes-benz.com, coca-cola.com, harley-davidson.com, e-verify.gov, web-platform-tests.org all rank fine. Conclusion: viable, but takes extra effort to overcome perception and build brand equity.
Significance
Minor on its own, but it reinforces the wiki’s “Google as SEO authority” thread (google-guidance-seo-authority): the canonical answer to an SEO question comes straight from Google (here via a Googler on social), not third-party tools.
Caveat
A staff-writer relay of an off-the-cuff Bluesky reply; not formal documentation.
Related
search-marketing · google-guidance-seo-authority