Free Keyword Density Checker
Paste your text or enter a URL to see how often each word and phrase appears, and what share of the page it makes up. For a URL it also shows where each term appears, in the title, H1, subheadings, first 100 words and alt text, which matters more than the percentage does.
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing here is ever sent anywhere.
126 total words (stop words included in this count, even when hidden from the tables below)
| Phrase | Count | Density |
|---|---|---|
| page | 4 | 3.17% |
| term | 4 | 3.17% |
| density | 2 | 1.59% |
| word | 2 | 1.59% |
| times | 2 | 1.59% |
| ranking | 2 | 1.59% |
| keyword | 1 | 0.79% |
| share | 1 | 0.79% |
| s | 1 | 0.79% |
| total | 1 | 0.79% |
| words | 1 | 0.79% |
| made | 1 | 0.79% |
| particular | 1 | 0.79% |
| phrase | 1 | 0.79% |
| use | 1 | 0.79% |
| twelve | 1 | 0.79% |
| nine-hundred | 1 | 0.79% |
| 1 | 1 | 0.79% |
| 33 | 1 | 0.79% |
| percent | 1 | 0.79% |
| Phrase | Count | Density |
|---|---|---|
| keyword density | 1 | 0.79% |
| page s | 1 | 0.79% |
| s total | 1 | 0.79% |
| total words | 1 | 0.79% |
| words made | 1 | 0.79% |
| particular word | 1 | 0.79% |
| phrase use | 1 | 0.79% |
| term twelve | 1 | 0.79% |
| twelve times | 1 | 0.79% |
| nine-hundred word | 1 | 0.79% |
| word page | 1 | 0.79% |
| 1 33 | 1 | 0.79% |
| 33 percent | 1 | 0.79% |
| page starts | 1 | 0.79% |
| starts ranking | 1 | 0.79% |
| ranking better | 1 | 0.79% |
| better search | 1 | 0.79% |
| search engines | 1 | 0.79% |
| engines stopped | 1 | 0.79% |
| stopped counting | 1 | 0.79% |
| Phrase | Count | Density |
|---|---|---|
| page s total | 1 | 0.79% |
| s total words | 1 | 0.79% |
| total words made | 1 | 0.79% |
| term twelve times | 1 | 0.79% |
| nine-hundred word page | 1 | 0.79% |
| 1 33 percent | 1 | 0.79% |
| page starts ranking | 1 | 0.79% |
| starts ranking better | 1 | 0.79% |
| ranking better search | 1 | 0.79% |
| better search engines | 1 | 0.79% |
| search engines stopped | 1 | 0.79% |
| engines stopped counting | 1 | 0.79% |
| stopped counting term | 1 | 0.79% |
| counting term frequency | 1 | 0.79% |
| primary ranking signal | 1 | 0.79% |
| long time ago | 1 | 0.79% |
| term repeated eight | 1 | 0.79% |
| body placement carries | 1 | 0.79% |
| placement carries weight | 1 | 0.79% |
What keyword density is
Keyword density is the share of a page’s total words made up by a particular word or phrase. Use a term 12 times on a 900-word page and its density is 1.33%.
That is the whole definition, and arithmetic has never been the difficult part. What has changed is what the number is good for.
There is no target density
There is no percentage at which a page starts ranking better. Google has said so directly and repeatedly, over many years and in plain language. The ranges you will find quoted elsewhere, one to three percent, two to four percent, half a percent for long pages, do not come from Google and do not come from any published study. They circulate because tools display them and articles repeat them.
The reason there is no target is worth understanding rather than taking on trust. Search engines stopped counting term frequency as a primary signal a long time ago, because it was trivially gamed. What replaced it is a set of signals about meaning: whether the page covers the subject, what else it mentions, how it is structured, what links to it and how they describe it. A term appearing more often does not make a page more about that subject. It only makes it more repetitive.
So a tool that tells you to hit 2.5% is telling you to edit toward a number nobody is measuring.
What the number is still useful for
The first use is catching genuine over-use. A term at six or eight percent is not a ranking problem so much as a reading problem. The repetition is audible, it makes the writing worse, and readers notice before any algorithm does. Density is a fast way to see it in text you are too close to.
The second is finding terms you did not realise you were leaning on. Run a page you wrote quickly and the two-word and three-word tables will often surface a phrase repeated far more than you intended, or reveal that the page is mostly about something adjacent to the thing you meant.
Placement beats frequency
A term in your title tag, your H1 and your first sentence is doing far more work than the same term used another eight times in the body. Placement carries weight that repetition does not, and it is the check most people skip because it is less measurable than a percentage.
The most common real finding when running a page through this tool is not a density that is too high or too low. It is a page that uses a term fourteen times in the body and not once in the title. The percentage looks healthy and the page is not optimised at all.
The placement grid in this tool checks exactly these spots: title, H1, subheadings, first 100 words, alt text and internal anchor text. If you’re auditing metadata specifically, pair this with the meta description generator for the title and description tags, and the alt text checker for images site-wide.
Keyword stuffing, and what actually goes wrong
Keyword stuffing is real and it is still penalised, but it is not defined by a percentage. What search engines act on is text that exists to repeat a term rather than to be read: lists of city names in a footer, the same phrase in every heading, sentences that repeat a term in a way no person would write.
You will not stuff a page by accident at 3%. You might at 8%, and you certainly will if the same phrase appears in every subheading. The threshold that matters is whether a person reading it aloud would notice.
This tool flags high concentrations and says why it is flagging them. It does not tell you that you have crossed a line, because there is no published line to cross.
Method, and why it goes on the page
Every tool in this category returns different numbers for the same page, and none of them says why. Here are the decisions this one makes.
The denominator is the one people miss. Two tools can agree on the count and still disagree on the percentage, because dropping stop words from the denominator raises every density. This tool does not do it.
The stop word list, published in full: a, about, above, after, again, all, am, an, and, any, are, as, at, be, because, been, before, being, below, between, both, but, by, can, could, did, do, does, doing, down, during, each, few, for, from, further, had, has, have, having, he, her, here, hers, herself, him, himself, his, how, i, if, in, into, is, it, its, itself, just, me, more, most, my, myself, no, nor, not, of, off, on, once, only, or, other, our, ours, ourselves, out, over, own, same, she, should, so, some, such, than, that, the, their, theirs, them, themselves, then, there, these, they, this, those, through, to, too, under, until, up, very, was, we, were, what, when, where, which, while, who, whom, why, will, with, would, you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves.
How to use this properly
- Check placement first. Title, H1, first 100 words. Fix anything missing before you touch frequency.
- Read the two and three word tables, not just single words. Phrases tell you what the page is actually about.
- Compare against the page you are trying to beat, not against a target. If a competitor covers four subtopics you have not mentioned, that is a more useful gap than any percentage.
- Use it on drafts. It is most valuable before publishing, when repetition is easiest to fix.
- Do not edit toward a number. If you find yourself adding a phrase to raise a percentage, the tool has made your writing worse and it has not helped your ranking.
Common mistakes
- Treating a published range as a target. There is no source behind them.
- Adding a term to reach a percentage. It reads badly and it does nothing.
- Ignoring the title while optimising the body. The most common real error this tool finds.
- Comparing numbers between tools. Different stop-word handling and different treatment of navigation produce different results for the same page.
- Checking density and nothing else. It is one quick look at a draft, not a content strategy.
Content that ranks now is judged on whether it answers the question, not on how often it repeats the phrase. See how the Zaprev team approaches content and GEO.
Or browse all free Zaprev tools.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good keyword density?
There is not one. No percentage makes a page rank better, and the ranges quoted around the web have no published source behind them. Use the number to spot obvious over-use in your own drafts, and judge everything else on whether the page answers the question well.
How do you calculate keyword density?
Divide the number of times a term appears by the total number of words on the page, then multiply by 100. A phrase used 12 times in 900 words is 1.33%. The complication is what counts as a word, which is why this page publishes the rules it uses.
Why do different tools give different numbers?
Because they make different decisions and mostly do not disclose them. Whether common words like the and of are counted, whether navigation and footer text is included, and whether variants of a word are merged all move the result substantially. Two tools disagreeing does not mean one is broken.
Does keyword density still matter for SEO?
Not as a target. Search engines stopped treating term frequency as a primary signal long ago because it was easy to manipulate. It remains a quick way to catch repetition that hurts readability, and a fast way to see what a draft is actually about.
What counts as keyword stuffing?
Text written to repeat a term rather than to be read: the same phrase in every heading, lists of locations in a footer, sentences no person would write that way. It is judged on the pattern rather than on a percentage, which is why no honest tool can give you a safe number.
Should I include stop words?
Usually not, which is why they are excluded by default here. Counting the and of inflates the total word count and pushes every density down, and it makes two and three word phrases much harder to read. The toggle is there because there are occasions to check both.
Can I check a page I have not published yet?
Yes. Paste the draft into the text mode, which runs entirely in your browser and sends nothing anywhere. That matters if the content is not public.
Does it work for Hindi or other non-English text?
Not yet. The word splitting, the phrase building and the common-word list are all built for English in Latin script, and applying them to Devanagari or Arabic script produces a table that looks right and counts the wrong things. The tool says so rather than showing you numbers it cannot stand behind.
Can I check a competitor page?
Yes, and it is the better use of the tool. Put their URL in the second field and both pages are analysed side by side, phrases and placement together. What you are looking for is not a percentage they beat you on, but a subject they cover and you do not.