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Google: keywords in URLs are a very small ranking signal

Google's Gary Illyes and Cherry Prommawin say URL keywords are a tiny signal and that hyphens beat underscores, per a new Search Central video.

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Written byAdam Hafez
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Key takeaways

  • Gary Illyes and Cherry Prommawin said keywords in a URL or domain are an incredibly small ranking signal that will not do much.
  • They said to use hyphens, not underscores, to separate keywords in the URL path.
  • They said Google can detect spamming in URLs, so stuffing keywords into a path is not a tactic to rely on.
  • The video also covers what can go in a domain name, internationalized domains and Punycode, emoji in URL paths and percent-encoding.
  • Search Engine Roundtable notes much of this was said before, and that the video goes into more technical detail.

Google Search Central published a video on 14 October 2026 titled What can you actually put in a URL?. Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz covered it as the first video in Google’s “The Non-Canonical Cabinet” series, with Gary Illyes and Cherry Prommawin. We did not watch the video, so everything below comes from Schwartz’s account.

Do URL keywords help ranking?

Illyes and Prommawin called keywords in a URL or a domain name an “incredibly small signal” that will not do much for ranking, per the report. Schwartz notes Google has said this before and that this video is more technical.

Which URL separator is best?

The speakers said to separate keywords in the URL path with hyphens and not with the _ character, per the report. Whether a given site changes anything is its own call: nothing in the report says existing URLs containing _ are penalized, so there is no stated reason to migrate them.

Can Google detect spam in URLs?

Yes, per the report: the speakers said Google can detect spamming in URLs. Stuffing a path with repeated keywords is therefore not something to count on. The video’s main value is the technical detail on what is allowed.

What else does the video cover?

According to Schwartz, it covers what can go in a domain name, internationalized domain names and Punycode, emoji in URL paths, and percent-encoding. Watch the video for the exact rules on each; we did not check them.

What should site owners do?

Readable hyphenated paths that stay stable are enough, and duplicate versions are best resolved with a canonical, which the canonical tag checker can verify. Our technical SEO and indexing hubs cover crawling and URL handling more broadly.

The evidence

Type
announcement
Impact
low
Affects
URL structure, Domain names, Internationalized URLs

Sources

  1. 1.What can you actually put in a URL? - Google Search Central (YouTube), October 14, 2026Primary
  2. 2.Google Search On URLs: Ranking Factor, Hyphens vs Underscores & Emojis - Search Engine Roundtable, October 14, 2026

Frequently asked questions

Are keywords in a URL a ranking factor?

Barely. Per Search Engine Roundtable's report of the Google video, Gary Illyes and Cherry Prommawin called keywords in a URL or domain an incredibly small signal that will not do much.

Should I use hyphens or underscores in URLs?

Hyphens. The Google speakers said to separate keywords in the URL path with hyphens, not underscores, according to Search Engine Roundtable.

Can Google detect keyword spam in URLs?

Yes, according to the video as reported. The speakers said Google can detect spamming in URLs.

Are emoji allowed in URLs?

The video covers emoji in URL paths alongside Punycode and percent-encoding. We did not watch it, so check the video for the exact guidance.

About the author

Adam Hafez
Adam Hafez

Founder, UpgradIQ FZC LLC

Adam Hafez works on technical SEO and search measurement: how pages get crawled, indexed, ranked and now quoted by answer engines. He founded UpgradIQ, which reads Google Search Console and GA4 to tie ranking movement back to the changes that caused it. He publishes what the data supports and states the limits of it.

  • Technical SEO
  • Search Console and GA4 measurement
  • Answer engine optimization
  • Structured data

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