Google Says Branded Searches With Keywords Don’t Help You Rank

Google’s John Mueller said people searching for your brand name and a keyword phrase does not help you rank better in Google Search or perform better SEO-wise. So having people search for your brand name followed by a keyword phrase won’t help you rank better.

I know this is probably obvious to some, but sometimes I find questions being asked that seem new to me and I like to cover them. The question was worded, “Do branded queries, like + [brand name], help a website rank for non-branded queries?”

John Mueller replied on Mastodon saying, “No, I don’t think that would make much sense.”

It is just too easy to spam, if you think about it. I believe this is how folks use to spam Google Suggest, auto-complete, in the old days.

Here is the full back-and-forth on this topic on Mastodon:

Forum discussion at Mastodon.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.