Keyword Density Checker

How to check keyword density

1. Paste your text into the box, or use Open file for a plain-text file (.txt, .md, .html and similar). The Example button loads a short text about running shoes.
2. Type your target keyword or phrase in Target keyword or phrase (optional). Capitals and punctuation in the field do not matter: Running Shoes! is checked as running shoes.
3. Read the result. The top line shows the keyword’s density, Times used and Words in text. Below it, three tables list the most repeated Single words, Two-word phrases and Three-word phrases, each with a count and a density.
4. Choose whether to skip common words. Skip common words is on by default, so words like the, of and with do not crowd the tables.

Results update as you type, and the tool remembers your options for your next visit. Leave the keyword field empty if you only want the tables.

How the density is calculated

The checker uses the same formula for the keyword and for every row in the tables:

density = times used × words in the term ÷ all words in the text × 100

Multiplying by the number of words in the term means the figure is the share of your text that the term takes up. A three-word phrase used twice covers six words, not two. The result is rounded to two decimal places.

Some other checkers divide by the word count without multiplying, which gives cold brew 0.75% in the same text. Neither is wrong, but compare figures from the same tool only.

The total is the same word count the word counter shows: hyphenated words, contractions and numbers count as one word each, and a lone dash does not count.

What counts as a match

Before comparing, every word is lowercased and the punctuation around it is removed; curly apostrophes are treated as straight ones. Punctuation inside a word stays. These cases come from running the tool:

Two more rules apply to phrases. A phrase never runs past a word ending in . ! ? … ; : or ,, so in We sell running. Shoes are extra. the keyword running shoes is used 0 times; a line break on its own does not split a phrase. The exception is a period after an abbreviation: words with an inner period (U.S., e.g.), short forms such as Mr., Dr., St., vs. and Inc., and etc. when the next word starts with a lowercase letter. In We met Mr. Smith. Then Mr. Smith left. the keyword mr smith is used 2 times. And the target keyword is counted without overlaps: in very very very, very very is used once (66.67%). The two- and three-word tables, by contrast, count every position, so with Skip common words off the same text lists very very twice (133.33%). That only shows up with repeated words in very short texts or tag lists. Chinese and Japanese keywords are split into characters the same way as the text, so they match too.

The “Skip common words” option

The option hides 184 common English function words (articles, pronouns, prepositions, forms of be and have, and words such as also, may and must). It changes only what the tables show:

• Single words: a common word is not listed.
• Two- and three-word phrases: a phrase is hidden if it starts or ends with a common word. A common word in the middle is kept, so shoes for road can appear but shoes for cannot.
• Target keyword: always checked, even if it is or contains a common word.
• Total words: never changes; common words still count toward the total.

With the option off, the, and and of usually top the single-word table, which is useful when checking your own writing habits but not when looking at topics. Tables are sorted by count, then alphabetically, and show terms used at least twice, up to 15 per table.

Worked example

This short product text, with cold brew as the target keyword and Skip common words on:

Our cold brew coffee is brewed for 18 hours. Cold brew coffee tastes smoother than iced coffee, and cold brew keeps for a week in the fridge.

The keyword covers 6 of 27 words, more than a fifth of the text, and brewed is not counted as brew. Short texts always show high densities, because each use is a large share of a few words; the same three uses in a 600-word page would be 1%. Turning Skip common words off adds for (2, 7.41%) to the single-word table and nothing else here.

What keyword density should be

Google publishes no ideal or recommended keyword density, and the word “density” does not appear in its SEO Starter Guide. What the guide does say is that “excessively repeating the same words over and over (even in variations) is tiring for users, and keyword stuffing is against Google’s spam policies.” The spam policies define keyword stuffing as filling a page with keywords or numbers to manipulate rankings, with examples such as blocks of city names a page tries to rank for and words repeated unnaturally.

Percentages such as “1-2%” circulate as rules of thumb, but they are not a Google rule. A more useful way to read the result:

• One term far above the rest in the tables usually reads as repetitive. Read those sentences aloud and replace some uses with a pronoun or a related term; the find and replace tool helps when the same word appears many times.
• The keyword missing entirely from a page about that topic may mean you used other words for it. Google’s guide notes that people who know a topic search with different words from newcomers, so using the terms your readers use is worth checking.
• Two- and three-word phrases show the topics a text actually covers, which is often more telling than single words.

The keyword density guide covers this in more depth, and the readability checker shows whether edits have made sentences harder to read.

When it helps

• Before publishing a blog post or product page: check the main phrase appears, and that no word is repeated more than the content needs.
• Editing a client’s or AI-generated draft: the tables expose stock phrases repeated throughout the text.
• Comparing your page with a competing page: paste both texts in turn and compare which phrases each one repeats.
• Checking an essay or report: turn Skip common words off to see which words you lean on.

Questions