Keyword Density Checker

Is a keyword repeated too often, or not enough, in your copy?

Writers with a target term in mind tend to repeat it more than they realize, and editors want a quick number to point at. This tool gives you that number. It tallies the keyword in your pasted text, divides by the total word count, and reports a percentage along with the raw counts. When the keyword has several words, each hit counts as that many words, so a two-word phrase found five times adds ten to the top of the fraction. Nothing is uploaded; the counting happens in the page.

Step by step

1. Put your focus term in the Target Keyword box.
2. Paste only the article body into the Content area, without navigation text or markup, since those inflate the word total.
3. Press Analyze Density.
4. Check the colored percentage and its label, then the Occurrences and Total Words rows to see where the figure came from.

What to watch for

Matching is literal. A single word is matched only as a whole word, which is good, but "running" is not a hit for "run" and "shoes" is not a hit for "shoe". A multi-word phrase is matched as an exact string, so it can be found inside a larger word, and a line break or double space between its words hides it. If a count looks low, search the text for variations yourself.

The color and label come from cutoffs written into the tool: under 0.5% shows as Too Low in yellow, anything over 2.5% turns red as a stuffing risk, and the band between is marked Good. The tip box beneath the figure is candid that no search engine publishes a target density. Treat the bands as a way to spot extremes, then judge the copy by reading it.

Questions people ask

What keyword density does Google want?

Google has not published a target, and its staff have long advised against writing to a density number. What Google does document is that keyword stuffing breaks its spam policies. Write for the reader and make sure the page actually covers the subject.

Does it matter where the keyword appears?

This tool only counts. Placement in the title, the main heading and the opening lines tends to matter more to people scanning the page than the overall percentage, and none of that is measured here.

Can I check a competitor's page with it?

Yes, if you copy the visible article text from their page and paste it in. The tool does not fetch URLs, so it only sees what you give it.

Further reading: Keyword Mapping: Assigning Keywords to Pages (and Avoiding Cannibalization) and What Is Semantic SEO and How to Use It.

The same tool is also published on the static mirror at seoprocheck.github.io, and the rest of the set is on the free tools page.