What is a keyword density checker?
Keyword density is simple arithmetic: the number of times a word appears, divided by the total number of words, times 100. If "hosting" appears 6 times in a 300-word page, its density is 2%. A keyword density checker does that counting for you.
With this tool you paste your text into the box, choose whether to ignore words shorter than 3, 4 or 5 letters, and optionally type a Target Keyword. After you click Analyze Keyword Density, you see four numbers (total words, unique keywords, reading time and meaningful words), a line for your target keyword, and a ranked list of the top 20 words with a coloured bar.
Density is a sanity check, not a ranking formula. Google does not publish an ideal percentage, and no number guarantees a result. The value of the tool is catching accidental repetition and spotting that your main topic word barely appears. It counts single words only, so it does not rank two-word phrases, and it reads only the letters a to z. Text in other alphabets or accented letters will be counted poorly.
How to check keyword density in your text
- Paste your copy into the Paste your content here box. Use plain body text, not HTML code.
- Type the phrase you are optimising for into Target Keyword if you want a dedicated count. It is optional.
- Pick a Minimum Word Length to Analyze: 3+, 4+ or 5+ letters.
- Click Analyze Keyword Density.
- Read the four stat boxes, then the blue target keyword line showing the number of matches, the percentage and a status.
- Scan the Top Keywords by Frequency list. Rewrite any word with a red marker, then run the check again.
What this tool reports
Top 20 word list
Each word is shown with its count, its density percentage and a bar scaled to the most frequent word.
Stop word filtering
Common words such as the, and, is and your are left out, so the list shows topic words instead of filler.
Target keyword line
Enter a word or phrase and see how many times it appears and its percentage, with a Low, Optimal or High status.
Minimum word length
Choose to drop words under 3, 4 or 5 letters to keep short, noisy words out of the list.
Colour thresholds
Words up to 2.5% get a green marker, above 2.5% yellow and above 4% red in the list.
Reading time estimate
Reading time is the total word count divided by 200 words per minute, rounded up.
Who uses it, and for what
- Writers finishing a blog post. Paste the final draft and check that your main topic word shows up in the top five and that no other word is repeated oddly.
- Editors reviewing freelance copy. Spot copy where one term appears in almost every sentence before you publish it.
- Shop owners writing product pages. Check a product description for repeated brand or model names. Keep titles under control with the Meta Tag Generator.
- Students and content teams. Pair the density report with the Readability Score Checker and the Word Counter to see how long and how dense a text really is.
Tips for reading the numbers
- Treat 1 to 2% as a loose guide for your main term. Do not force a number; write for the reader first.
- Paste only the visible body copy. Menus, footers and cookie banners add words that skew the percentages.
- The tool counts words one at a time. A phrase like "running shoes" will show up as two separate entries unless you type it into Target Keyword.
- Avoid special characters in the Target Keyword box, such as brackets or plus signs. They can make the match fail.
- Remember the target keyword percentage is based on all words, including stop words, while the list percentage uses the same total. Both use the full word count as the base.
- Use synonyms and related words rather than repeating one term. If a word is flagged red, replace some uses with a pronoun or a variant.
Is it safe? Privacy and limits
The analysis runs in your browser with JavaScript. Your text is not sent to a server by this tool and is not saved after you close the page. It does not check your live web page, compare you with competitors, or look up search volume, so the result describes only the text you pasted. This is a simple counter, not a promise of better rankings.
Keyword density checker FAQ
Keyword density is the share of a text taken up by one word or phrase. The formula is occurrences divided by total words, multiplied by 100. For example, 5 uses in a 250-word article gives 2%. It is a quick way to see whether a topic word is missing or overused. It says nothing about quality, relevance or intent, which search engines weigh far more heavily. That is why this tool presents it as a check on your draft, not as a score to chase.
There is no official number. Google has never published a target. Many writers aim for roughly 1 to 2% for the main term because it usually reads naturally at that level. This tool labels a target keyword Low below 1%, Optimal from 1% up to 3%, and High at 3% or more. In the word list it colours items yellow above 2.5% and red above 4%. Those cut-offs are the tool's own rules of thumb. A short page can look high with only a few repeats.
The top 20 list counts single words only, so "cheap flights" appears as cheap and flights. The Target Keyword box does match phrases: if you type cheap flights, the tool counts how many times that exact phrase appears and shows the percentage. Note that the percentage divides by total words, not total phrases, so a two-word phrase is measured against the full word count. If you need a full n-gram report, use a dedicated crawler or text analysis software.
It removes a built-in list of common English stop words, such as the, and, of, is, this and you. It also ignores any word shorter than the minimum length you choose, which can be 3, 4 or 5 letters. Numbers and punctuation are stripped before counting because the tool keeps only the letters a to z. As a result, accented characters and non-Latin scripts are not handled properly, so results for Spanish, German or Arabic text can be unreliable.
Yes. Google's spam policies list keyword stuffing as a violation, meaning repeating words or numbers in an unnatural way to manipulate rankings. Pages that do it may be demoted. A high percentage alone does not prove stuffing, but sentences that sound forced do. Read your text aloud. If a phrase appears where a person would say "it" or "they", change it. Use the red markers in this tool as a prompt to reread that part of the draft.
The tool matches whole words, ignoring case. So seo will not match seos, and a phrase must appear in exactly the same order and spacing. Hyphenated words are also tricky: well-known is matched as a hyphenated string, but the word list breaks it into well and known. If a count looks low, check spelling and plurals, and try the singular form. Special characters in the keyword box can also cause the match to fail, so type plain words.
The counting is done by JavaScript in your browser and the tool does not upload the text you paste. It is not stored by this page. That makes it reasonable for unpublished drafts. As with any web page, avoid pasting confidential material if your browser has extensions that can read page content. The tool does not need an account, so there is nothing linked to your name or email. If you work with client drafts, tell them where the text will be processed, and keep the page closed afterward if the content is sensitive.
Start with the top of the list. If your main topic is missing from the top five words, the page may be off-topic or too vague, so add it where it fits. If one non-topic word dominates, rewrite those sentences. Then run the draft through the Readability Score Checker to make sure edits did not make it harder to read. Finally, check titles and snippets in the SERP Preview Tool. Keep editing for clarity, not to hit a percentage.