Keyword Density Checker
SEO ToolsAnalyze keyword density in text with single-word and multi-word phrase frequencies, percentages, and SEO recommendations.. Free, private — all processing in your browser.
Paste in an article or page copy and this counts how often each word and phrase appears, then shows the density — the percentage of total words each term makes up. You get single words, two-word phrases, and three-word phrases, each ranked by frequency, so you can see at a glance what your content is actually "about" in the eyes of a word-counting crawler.
It's useful for a quick gut-check: is the topic you meant to write about actually the most-repeated term, or did filler words crowd it out? Are you accidentally repeating one phrase so often it reads as stuffed? The two- and three-word phrase tables are usually more revealing than single words, because that's where real topics and stuffed keywords show up.
One honest caveat: this counts raw words. It doesn't strip common stop words like "the" and "and", so those often top the single-word list. Look past them to the meaningful terms, and lean on the phrase tables.
Features at a glance
Single-word frequencies
Top most common words with counts and percentages.
Bigram analysis
Two-word phrases (e.g., "machine learning") with counts — useful for long-tail keyword discovery.
Trigram analysis
Three-word phrases for even more specific long-tail patterns.
Stopword filtering
Remove common words (the, a, and) that don’t contribute to meaningful analysis.
Stemming option
Merge plurals and verb forms so "run" and "running" count together.
Density warnings
Flags keywords that appear too often (risk of keyword stuffing) or too little for SEO relevance.
Multi-language stopwords
Supports English, Spanish, German, French, and more for international content.
Client-side only
Content stays in your browser — safe for draft articles and internal documents.
How it works
The analyzer lowercases your text, strips punctuation (anything that isn't a letter, number, or space), and splits on whitespace into a word list. From there it counts single-word frequencies, then slides a window across the text to count every consecutive two-word and three-word phrase. Density is each term's count divided by the total word count, shown as a percentage.
It reports total words and unique words at the top, then the top 20 single words. For phrases it only shows ones that occur more than once, since a phrase appearing a single time carries no density signal. Everything is capped at the top 20 per table so the results stay readable on long text.
There's no stop-word list and no stemming, so "run", "runs", and "running" count as three separate words, and "the" will usually be the most frequent single word. It all runs in your browser as you type — nothing is uploaded.
Where this helps
SEO content creation
- →Pre-publication audit: Check keyword density of drafts before publishing to avoid over- or under-optimization.
- →Competitor content analysis: Analyze top-ranking competitor pages to understand keyword patterns for your topic.
- →Long-tail discovery: Bigrams and trigrams reveal phrase patterns that can be targeted in follow-up content.
Content quality
- →Writing focus check: Identify when content drifts off-topic by seeing unexpected words dominating the density.
- →Editorial review: Spot repetitive language or over-used words that could benefit from rewording.
- →Summarization: Top keywords summarize what a piece is really about beyond its title.
Research
- →Topic research: Analyze a batch of articles on a topic to identify common terminology and technical vocabulary.
- →Trend detection: Track how keyword prevalence changes in content over time.
- →Academic text analysis: Quick frequency analysis for discourse studies or content analysis research.
Worked examples
Balanced article
Good keyword density for an SEO-optimized blog post.
1500-word article about "home gardening"
home gardening: 15 (1.0%) garden: 18 (1.2%) plants: 24 (1.6%) seedlings: 8 (0.5%) rating: healthy keyword density
Over-optimized
Keyword-stuffed content.
500-word page about "best running shoes"
best running shoes: 22 times (4.4%) warning: well above 2.5% threshold — risk of keyword stuffing penalty
Long-tail discovery
Bigram analysis revealing useful phrases.
article on "productivity tools"
top bigrams: - task management: 8 - time tracking: 6 - project planning: 5 these phrases could be targeted in separate articles
Topic drift
Analysis reveals content goes off-topic.
article titled "SEO basics" but heavy on "email marketing"
expected: SEO terms dominate actual: email, newsletter, subscribers top the list recommendation: refocus article or rename to reflect actual content
Low density
Primary keyword barely mentioned.
1200-word article targeting "machine learning"
machine learning: 3 (0.25%) warning: below 0.5% — keyword is not well represented recommendation: work keyword into subheadings and body naturally
Troubleshooting
⚠Stop words dominate the single-word list
There's no stop-word filtering, so 'the', 'a', 'and', and 'to' usually top the single-word table. Focus on the meaningful terms and the phrase tables instead.
⚠There is no ideal keyword density
Old SEO advice about hitting 1-3% density is outdated. Search engines don't reward a target percentage, and writing to a number produces worse content. Use this to catch problems, not to hit a quota.
⚠No stemming or lemmatization
Word variations are counted separately: 'optimize', 'optimizes', and 'optimizing' are three different entries. Your true topic coverage may be higher than any single row suggests.
⚠Punctuation and hyphenation affect counts
Punctuation is stripped before counting, so hyphenated words and contractions may split in ways you don't expect. Check the tables if a term seems miscounted.
⚠Very high density can read as stuffing
If one keyword or phrase shows an unusually high percentage, that's a signal to vary your wording — not because of a magic threshold, but because repetitive copy reads poorly to humans.
Keyword Density Checker — comparisons and alternatives
Full SEO suites like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Surfer analyze density against ranking competitors and suggest target ranges. This tool doesn't do competitive analysis or give you a "correct" density number — because there isn't one. Modern search engines don't reward hitting a specific keyword percentage, and chasing one is a good way to write worse content.
Use this as a diagnostic, not a target: to spot accidental over-repetition, confirm your main topic actually appears prominently, and find the phrases your text emphasizes. For keyword research and competitor gap analysis, reach for a dedicated SEO platform.
Frequently asked questions about the Keyword Density Checker
▶What is a good keyword density?
There isn't a target to hit. Search engines stopped rewarding specific density percentages long ago. Write naturally for readers; use this tool to catch accidental over-repetition or to confirm your main topic is actually prominent.
▶Why is 'the' my top keyword?
The tool counts all words and doesn't filter common stop words like 'the', 'and', or 'to'. Those naturally appear most often. Scroll past them to your meaningful terms and check the two- and three-word phrase tables.
▶Why do the phrase tables only show some phrases?
Phrases that appear only once are hidden, because a single occurrence carries no density signal. Only two- and three-word phrases that repeat are listed, ranked by how often they occur.
▶Does capitalization or punctuation matter?
No. Text is lowercased and punctuation is stripped before counting, so 'SEO', 'seo', and 'seo.' all count as the same word.
▶Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. The analysis runs entirely in your browser as you type. Nothing you paste is sent to a server or stored.
Useful references
- Google on content quality — Google’s guidance on creating helpful content, which supersedes older keyword-density focus.
- Moz keyword density guide — Comprehensive overview of keyword density in modern SEO.
- Ahrefs on keyword stuffing — Analysis of keyword stuffing penalties and modern keyword strategy.
- Natural Language Toolkit — Python NLP library for programmatic keyword and frequency analysis.
- TF-IDF explanation — Background on TF-IDF, a more sophisticated keyword measure used in search ranking.
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