Keyword Density Checker

Analyze keyword frequency and density in your content. Identify over-optimized keywords and surface the most prominent terms in any text.

Your Content
Paste content and click Analyze.

Frequently Asked Questions

Keyword density is the percentage of times a specific word or phrase appears in your content relative to the total word count. Formula: (keyword count / total words) × 100. Most SEO experts recommend keeping it between 1–3% for your primary keyword.
Keyword stuffing is the practice of excessively repeating keywords to manipulate search rankings. Google's algorithms penalize it. A density above 3–5% for the same keyword is generally considered a risk factor. Aim for natural, reader-first writing.
Stop words (the, and, is, a, for…) appear in almost every piece of text and carry no SEO value. Excluding them lets you focus on the meaningful keywords in your content. You can uncheck the option to see the full frequency list including stop words.
The tool generates bigrams — every consecutive pair of words in the text — then counts and ranks them by frequency. This surfaces important two-word keyword phrases (e.g., "machine learning", "email marketing") that a single-word analysis would miss.
There is no strict rule, but most SEO practitioners recommend a keyword density of 1–2% for your primary keyword. What matters more than a specific percentage is natural, contextually appropriate usage. Google's algorithms are sophisticated enough to understand topic relevance without keyword repetition, so writing for humans first and using keywords where they fit naturally is the best approach.
Keyword stuffing is the practice of forcing a keyword into content at an unnaturally high frequency to manipulate search rankings. Google's Panda algorithm and its successors penalize stuffing with ranking demotions or manual actions. Density above 3–5% for the same keyword is generally a warning sign. The penalty ranges from lower rankings to complete removal from the index.
LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords are terms that are conceptually related to your primary keyword — synonyms, related phrases, and co-occurring terms that appear in content on the same topic. For example, an article about "coffee" would naturally contain LSI terms like "espresso", "caffeine", "brewing", and "roast". Including these terms helps Google better understand your content's topic and can improve rankings for a wider range of related queries.
TF-IDF (Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency) measures how important a word is in a document relative to a collection of documents. Unlike keyword density (which only counts occurrences in your page), TF-IDF compares your term usage against the entire web corpus. A high TF-IDF score for a term means it appears frequently in your document but rarely across other documents, signalling strong relevance. Advanced SEO tools use TF-IDF to identify content gaps.
Modern Google uses neural matching and large language model-based systems to understand meaning, not just keywords. It evaluates overall topical depth, entity relationships, and how comprehensively a page covers a subject. This means covering related subtopics, answering follow-up questions, and demonstrating expertise is more effective than optimizing for keyword frequency alone.
A primary keyword is the main term you want a page to rank for — it should appear in the title tag, H1, URL, and naturally throughout the content. Secondary keywords are related terms and variations that support the primary topic (e.g., "best running shoes" as primary, with secondaries like "trail running footwear" or "running shoe reviews"). Targeting both increases the range of queries a single page can rank for.

About This Keyword Density Checker

This free keyword density checker analyses the text of any webpage or pasted content and shows how frequently each word and phrase appears, expressed as a percentage of total words. Enter a URL or paste text to see a ranked frequency table.

Keyword density is not a direct ranking factor, but monitoring it helps identify unintentional keyword stuffing and ensures that important terms appear naturally throughout the content.

When to use this tool

  • Checking that a target keyword appears a reasonable number of times
  • Identifying accidental keyword repetition or stuffing
  • Comparing keyword distribution against competing pages
  • Auditing AI-generated content for over-used terms

Standards & References

Related SEO Tools

SERP Preview SEO Checklist Word & Character Counter Heading Extractor

Related Articles

In-depth guides and technical articles.

View all →
Word Frequency Analysis Finds the Habits You Can't See
Seo Sep 20, 2026
Word Frequency Analysis Finds the Habits You Can't See
Word frequency analysis is a weak SEO tool and a strong editing one. It surfaces the filler verbs, hedges and repeated sentence openers you can't see in your own draft.
Keyword Density Is Not a Ranking Factor — Here's What Word Frequency Analysis Actually Reveals About Content Quality
Seo Jul 14, 2026
Keyword Density Is Not a Ranking Factor — Here's What Word Frequency Analysis Actually Reveals About Content Quality
Google explicitly doesn't use keyword density as a ranking factor — but word frequency analysis reveals real content quality signals when used correctly. Here's how search evolved from keyword matching to entity-based semantic coverage (Hummingbird, BERT, MUM), why TF-IDF reveals distinctive terms rather than optimal targets, the frequency patterns that indicate thin content vs stuffing, and the comparative gap analysis that's the only useful application of word frequency tools.
Long-Tail Keywords Build Topical Authority — Here's the Synergy Most SEO Advice Misses
Seo Jun 23, 2026
Long-Tail Keywords Build Topical Authority — Here's the Synergy Most SEO Advice Misses
Long-tail strategies and topical authority strategies seem like opposites — but they're synergistic: long-tail content accumulates into topical authority, which eventually improves head term competitiveness. Here's the power-law search volume distribution, why head term competition makes density optimization largely irrelevant (authority signals dominate), why keyword density analysis is more directly actionable for long-tail content, and how comprehensive long-tail coverage produces the semantic signals that build topical authority.
Keyword Cannibalization: Identifying When Your Own Pages Compete — and Whether to Merge or Differentiate Them
Seo Jun 17, 2026
Keyword Cannibalization: Identifying When Your Own Pages Compete — and Whether to Merge or Differentiate Them
Two pages on your own site competing for the same search query is a fully within-your-control problem — yet one of the most common issues found in SEO audits, often developing through organic content growth without coordination. Here's how to identify cannibalization via Search Console ranking fluctuation, when to consolidate vs differentiate competing pages, and when apparent overlap isn't actually a problem.
Why Identical Keyword Density Can Produce Completely Different Rankings: Search Intent Explained
Seo Jun 15, 2026
Why Identical Keyword Density Can Produce Completely Different Rankings: Search Intent Explained
Two pages can have identical keyword density for "running shoes" — and one ranks while the other doesn't — because density measures word frequency, while rankings increasingly reflect whether the content type matches what searchers for that specific query actually want. Here's how to infer search intent by examining what content types currently rank, why "mixed intent" keywords support multiple content types, and why no textual analysis tool — including density or TF-IDF — can measure intent directly.