Google Search Advocate John Mueller used a Bluesky post to put a recurring SEO question to rest, confirming that hyphens in domain names carry no negative ranking signal. The thread had asked about the maximum number of dashes a domain can hold. Mueller noted that he periodically fields questions about whether dashes are acceptable for SEO, then answered the volume question directly: “the answer is apparently 61.” Search Engine Journal, in reporting by Roger Montti published June 8, 2026, framed the comment as a correction to a belief many practitioners still hold.
That belief traces back more than two decades, to an era when keyword-rich and exact-match domains ranked well on primitive signals. Registrants stuffed target terms into domains, often separated by hyphens, because early ranking systems rewarded the practice. The tactic produced a wave of thin, low-quality sites built around keyword domains rather than substance. When those sites stopped ranking, the SEO community attributed the decline to the hyphen itself. The more accurate reading is that the penalty fell on the quality of the sites, not on the punctuation in their addresses.
Google’s handling of exact-match domains has long since devalued the keyword-in-domain trick. Matching a query inside a domain name no longer delivers the ranking advantage it once did, which removed the incentive that drove the spammy hyphenated-domain pattern in the first place. With that incentive gone, the correlation between hyphens and low quality faded, leaving the character with no independent ranking effect. Plenty of established brands run hyphenated domains and rank without difficulty, which undercuts the idea that a dash is inherently a liability.
None of this means a hyphenated domain is the optimal choice. The arguments against hyphens are real, but they are usability arguments rather than ranking ones. A hyphenated name is harder to remember, easier to mistype, and prone to type-in errors when a visitor drops or misplaces a dash. It complicates verbal sharing, since dictating an address over the phone or reading it aloud in a meeting requires spelling out each separator. It can also dilute brand perception, and it makes email addresses on the domain clumsier to communicate. Those costs are worth weighing, but they sit outside the ranking calculation Mueller addressed.
The practical consequence for SEOs and site owners is a clean separation of concerns. A hyphen in a domain name is not a ranking liability, so the decision should turn on brand and usability factors rather than on a search penalty that does not exist. Teams choosing a domain can stop treating dashes as a technical SEO risk and instead evaluate them on memorability, clarity, and how the name will be typed, spoken, and remembered. Site quality, content depth, and authority remain the variables that move rankings, regardless of how the domain is punctuated.
According to Search Engine Journal, reporting by Roger Montti, published June 8, 2026.
