Keyword density: what it is and what search engines say about it

Keyword density is how much of a text one keyword takes up, as a percentage of all the words. If a 1,000-word article uses the word espresso 10 times, its density is 1%. Many SEO tools report it, and many old guides recommend a target such as 1–2%. As of October 2026, though, Google’s documentation gives no target density at all. It does say that repeating words so often that they sound unnatural is keyword stuffing, which breaks its spam policies. To measure density for your own text, paste it into the keyword density checker.

The keyword density formula

Keyword density = times the keyword is used × words in the keyword ÷ total words × 100

Multiplying by the number of words in the keyword gives the share of the text the keyword actually covers. A three-word phrase used 4 times covers 12 words, not 4.

Keyword	Words in keyword	Times used	Total words	Density
espresso	1	10	1,000	1%
espresso	1	20	1,000	2%
espresso machine	2	5	1,000	1%
best espresso machine	3	4	600	2%

Not every tool uses this version. Some divide the number of uses by the total words and stop there. With that method, espresso machine used 5 times in 1,000 words comes out at 0.5% instead of 1%. Neither is wrong, but the figures cannot be compared with each other, so stick to one tool when you compare drafts or pages.

The total word count also matters. On this site the total is the same number the word counter shows: hyphenated words and contractions count as one word, and a lone dash does not count. Common words such as the and of are always part of the total, even when a tool hides them from its lists.

Two versions of the same paragraph

Both texts below were run through the keyword density checker with the keyword cheap flights to Denver. The first one repeats the phrase in every sentence:

Looking for cheap flights to Denver? Our cheap flights to Denver page lists cheap flights to Denver from every major airport. Book cheap flights to Denver today, because cheap flights to Denver sell out fast.

The second uses the phrase once and spends the rest of its words on things a traveler needs:

Cheap flights to Denver leave from most major US airports. Compare nonstop routes from Chicago, Dallas and Seattle, and check whether a basic economy ticket includes a carry-on bag before you pay. Late arrivals are common, so plan how you will get from the airport into the city.

Result	Repetitive version	Natural version
Words in text	35	48
Times the keyword is used	5	1
Keyword density	57.14%	8.33%
Top three-word phrase	flights to denver, 5 times (42.86%)	none repeated

The first paragraph is the pattern Google describes in its spam policies: the same phrase repeated so often that it sounds unnatural. The second still has 8.33% density, which looks high next to a “1–2%” target. That shows a limit of the measure: in a short text, every use is a large share of a few words. The same single use in a 600-word page would be about 0.67%.

What Google says about keyword density

Google does not publish a recommended keyword density. Its SEO Starter Guide does not use the word “density”. What it says about repetition, as of October 2026:

• “Excessively repeating the same words over and over (even in variations) is tiring for users, and keyword stuffing is against Google’s spam policies.”
• “If you are varying the words (writing naturally to not be repetitive), you have more chances to show up in Search simply because you are using more keywords.”
• “Google’s language matching systems are sophisticated and can understand how your page relates to many queries, even if you don’t explicitly use the exact terms in them.”
• “Google Search doesn’t use the keywords meta tag.”

The spam policies define keyword stuffing as “filling a web page with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate rankings in Google Search results.” Their examples are:

Example from Google’s spam policies	What it looks like
Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value	A page that is mostly a list of numbers
Blocks of text that list cities and regions a page is trying to rank for	“Plumber in Austin, Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown…”
Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural	The repetitive Denver paragraph above

The test in both documents is how the text reads to a person, not a percentage. A density figure cannot tell you on its own whether a text is stuffed. It can point you to the sentences worth reading again.

Why “1–2%” is not a rule

Percentages like 1–2% or “no more than 3%” are rules of thumb repeated by SEO tools and blogs. Google’s guides do not give them. They also behave oddly in practice:

• Text length changes everything. One use in a 50-word product blurb is 2%; one use in a 2,000-word guide is 0.05%. A fixed target pushes short texts toward too few uses and long texts toward too many.
• Exact matching misses variants. A checker counts espresso machine but not espresso machines or machine for espresso. Google’s guide says its systems understand related wording, so a low exact-match figure does not mean the topic is missing.
• Formulas differ. As shown above, the same text can be 0.5% in one tool and 1% in another.
• Density says nothing about placement or quality. A keyword in the title, the first paragraph and a heading reads very differently from the same number of uses packed into one footer.

How to use a density check sensibly

A density check is still useful as an editing aid, as long as you read it as a description of the text rather than a score to hit:

1. Paste the final text, not the HTML. Menus and footers inflate some words. The HTML tag remover strips markup if that is all you have.
2. Check the keyword appears at all. If a page about cold brew never says cold brew, you may have used your own term instead of the one readers search for. Google’s guide gives the example of “charcuterie” versus “cheese board”: experts and newcomers use different words.
3. Look at the top phrases, not only your keyword. If one two- or three-word phrase is far ahead of everything else, read those sentences aloud.
4. Vary the repeats. Replace some uses with a pronoun, a shorter reference (“the machine”) or a related term. The find and replace tool helps when a word appears dozens of times.
5. Check the result still reads well with the readability checker.

Keyword density vs word frequency

The two measures use the same counts. Word frequency lists every word or phrase with how often it appears and its share of all words, and it can export the full list as CSV. Keyword density focuses on one target term and the most repeated words and phrases. Use word frequency to see your whole vocabulary, for example to spot a word you lean on in an essay. Use keyword density when you have a specific term in mind. The text analysis guide explains how these counts fit together with word counts and readability scores.

A few details apply to both tools on this site. Matching ignores capital letters and the punctuation around a word, so Shoes, and SHOES! both count as shoes. A hyphenated word such as running-shoes is a single word and does not match shoes. Phrases are not counted across a sentence end or a comma, so running. Shoes is not a use of running shoes. Plurals and other forms are separate words, so check each form you care about. Everything runs in your browser and the text is not uploaded.