These three stocks have beaten the S&P 500 (SPY) over the last five years, have pristine multi-decade track records of dividend growth, and safe businesses that will continue to print cash for shareholders. But, you will never hear about them on CNBC. Here are the top three underrated safe dividend stocks. 

Dividends matter more than you might think.

Consider the S&P 500, which is up 55% over the last 10 years. When you include dividends, however, the total return for the S&P 500 is 92%. For the last 25 years, that difference is even greater with the S&P 500 up 440%, but the total return with dividends is 805%.

Digging even deeper, it’s not only the dividend yield that matters. Investors can do better by focusing on certain dividend qualities.

Since inception in 2006, the Vanguard High Yield ETF (NYSE: VYM), which focuses on just high yielding stocks, has returned a mere 34%.

Stocks that have steadily increased their dividends have widely outpaced high-yielders. The Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF (NYSE: VIG) is up 57% since 2006. Instead of worrying about how high the yield is, the Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF focuses on the quality of the dividend.

There’s a number of stocks out there that have a history of 25 years or more of dividend increases. These stocks are known as Dividend Aristocrats. This includes AT&T (NYSE: T), which has a 31-year streak of dividend increases, and offers a 5% dividend yield. Or AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV), the 4% yielding healthcare company that has upped its dividend for 43 years.

Instead of focusing on the well-known dividends like AT&T and AbbVie, it’s the obscure dividends that could offer the most value.

We’ve dug through the Dividend Aristocrat list and found the best of both worlds, stocks with a consistent history of dividend increases and high yields. But that’s not all, we also narrowed our list to stocks that are safe and stable.