John Mueller from Google has mentioned that there is no penalty or demotion for using a hyphen. However, be careful you're not keyword stuffing.
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Posts made by MarieHaynes
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RE: Should i not use hyphens in web page titles? Google Penalty for hyphens?
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RE: How to check if a site is doing blackhat SEO?
Why does it matter?
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RE: Do branded footer links hurt me?
I started to type out a big long answer and realized that this would probably be better served as an entire article...so, I've just spent the last few hours writing an article on my thoughts on this question. For the last couple of years I've been watching John Mueller's Webmaster Central Hangouts and making notes. I've summarized in the article, everything that John has said related to the subject.
I hope it's not against the rules for me to link to my own stuff from the Moz Q&A. If it is, then Moz Mods, feel free to remove either the link or the post: What Google says about footer links and penalties.
The take home points are:
-Don't link with keyword anchor text
-You have to make sure that the clients are aware of the link and want to have it there (which is a tough thing to prove!)
-If you're not sure whether your links are natural then it may be best to nofollow