Free SEO Tool

Keyword Density Checker

Compute the most-used 1-, 2-, and 3-word phrases on any webpage or text block with their density percentages.

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What this measures

Enter a URL or paste text and you get the most frequent single words, two-word phrases and three-word phrases, each with a count and a density percentage — that phrase's share of total words on the page.

Looking at two- and three-word phrases alongside single words matters more than the raw numbers. Individual word counts are noisy; phrases are what reveal the actual topic. A page where "keyword density checker" appears as a recurring phrase is unambiguously about this tool, in a way that a high count for "keyword" alone never establishes.

There is no target percentage — and that is the point

The advice that you should aim for 1 to 3 percent density is the most persistent myth in on-page SEO. It comes from the late 1990s, when search engines genuinely did count keyword occurrences to determine relevance. That approach was trivially gamed, and it stopped working roughly two decades ago.

Modern search engines evaluate meaning rather than frequency. Systems built on natural language understanding recognise that a page about running shoes is relevant to "best trainers for marathon training" even when that phrase never appears, and they recognise a page that repeats an exact phrase forty times as manipulative rather than relevant. Google has stated plainly that keyword density is not something it uses as a ranking factor.

So do not write to hit a number. If you find yourself adding a phrase to reach a target, you are actively making the page worse.

What the tool is genuinely useful for

Density is diagnostic, not prescriptive. It is worth running for four specific reasons:

Catching accidental over-optimisation. A phrase at 5 or 6 percent usually means the draft became repetitive — and repetitive text reads badly to humans long before it registers as spam to an algorithm.
Confirming the page is about what you think it is. If the top phrases are navigation labels, your brand name, or boilerplate rather than your subject, the actual content is too thin relative to the template around it.
Auditing a competitor's page to see which phrasing they favour — useful for spotting the vocabulary a topic conventionally uses.
Finding what is missing. Often the more valuable insight is a term you expected to see and do not, which points at a genuine gap in coverage.

Placement beats frequency

Where a term appears carries far more weight than how often. The title tag, H1, opening paragraph, subheadings, image alt text, and the URL all signal topic strongly. One well-placed use in the title is worth more than a dozen scattered through the body.

What genuinely helps is covering the topic completely: the related concepts, common questions, and natural synonyms a knowledgeable writer would include anyway. That produces the semantic richness search engines actually reward — and it happens naturally when you write for a reader rather than for a percentage.

Reading your results sensibly

Common words dominate every text — "the", "and", "to" — and mean nothing. Look past them to the meaningful phrases. If your primary topic does not appear anywhere near the top, the page may be genuinely unfocused. If it appears far more than everything else combined, read the draft aloud; repetition that a tool flags is usually repetition a reader would feel.

When checking a URL rather than pasted text, remember that shared navigation and footer content is counted too. On a page with a large site-wide footer, template text can crowd out the real content — which is itself worth knowing, because search engines face the same problem distinguishing your page from every other page on the site.

Frequently asked questions

What is the ideal keyword density? #

There is not one. The 1 to 3 percent rule dates from the 1990s and stopped being relevant about two decades ago. Google has said directly that keyword density is not a ranking factor. Write naturally and use the number as a diagnostic, never a target.

Can high keyword density get my page penalised? #

Deliberate keyword stuffing is a documented spam policy violation, so yes, in blatant cases. In practice the bigger cost is ordinary: repetitive text reads badly, so visitors leave. There is no threshold to stay under — write for readers and it will not arise.

Why are "the" and "and" my top words? #

Function words dominate all natural English text. Ignore them and read the meaningful phrases, particularly the two- and three-word ones, which reveal the topic far better than single words.

Should I add my keyword more times if density seems low? #

No. If the page reads well and covers the topic properly, low density is fine. Adding occurrences to hit a number makes the writing worse without helping rankings. If the topic genuinely is not covered, add substance rather than repetitions.

Why do navigation and footer words appear in my results? #

Checking a URL analyses the whole rendered page, including shared template text. If boilerplate outweighs your actual content, that is a genuine finding: search engines face the same difficulty telling your page apart from every other page on the site.

Does this work for languages other than English? #

Word and phrase counting works for any space-separated language. Languages without spaces between words, such as Chinese and Japanese, will not segment correctly, so the counts are not meaningful for those.

What matters more than density? #

Placement and completeness. A term in the title tag, H1, first paragraph and URL signals topic far more strongly than repetition in the body — and covering related concepts and questions properly matters more than any single phrase's frequency.

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