By the convention used by Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and our Word Counter, every whitespace-separated token counts as one word. Specifically:
- Numbers count: "There were 3 apples" = 4 words.
- Hyphenated compounds count as one: "well-known" = 1 word.
- Contractions count as one: "don't" = 1 word.
- URLs and emails count as one each.
- Punctuation never counts as a word.