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Free Keyword Density Checker & Word Density Analyzer

Instantly check keyword density in any text or URL. Paste your content or enter a page address — our free keyword density tool counts every word and phrase, calculates exact percentages, detects keyword stuffing, and shows your top 1-word, 2-word, and 3-word phrases ranked by frequency.

📊 Keyword Density % 🔤 1 / 2 / 3 Word Phrases ⚠ Stuffing Detector 🎯 Keyword Prominence 🔍 Highlight in Text 🌐 Fetch from URL 📖 Readability Score
Fetch from URL:
0 words
0 words 0 chars 0 sentences ~0 min read

Add your target keywords to check density, prominence, and placement. Leave blank to see the top words and phrases in your content.

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Ready to Analyze

Paste your content on the left (or fetch from a URL), optionally add your target keywords, then click Analyze Keyword Density.

Keyword Density Explained

What Is Keyword Density and Why Does It Matter for SEO?

Keyword density is the percentage of times a target keyword appears in a piece of content relative to the total word count. For example, if your article contains 1,000 words and your keyword appears 10 times, the keyword density is 1%. Use the keyword density calculator above to check this instantly for any text or URL.

While Google no longer uses keyword density as a direct ranking signal, it remains important as a proxy for topical relevance. Content that never mentions the target keyword naturally will struggle to rank for it. Equally, content with extremely high density signals keyword stuffing — a practice Google actively penalises.

Our free keyword density tool goes beyond a simple percentage — it checks keyword prominence (how early the keyword appears), phrase frequency across 1, 2, and 3-word combinations, and flags any density above 3% as a stuffing risk.

Keyword Density Formula

Keyword Density =
( Keyword Count ÷ Total Words ) × 100

Our keyword density calculator runs this calculation automatically for every keyword and phrase in your content.

0.5–2%
Ideal Range
Natural usage
2–3%
Caution Zone
Review usage
>3%
Stuffing Risk
Reduce usage
SEO Review Tools

Why SEO Review Tools Like This Keyword Density Checker Matter

Professional SEO review tools — like Semrush, Ahrefs, and SurferSEO — all include a keyword density checker in their content analysis suite because density is a foundational metric for understanding how well a piece of content is optimised for its target terms. Our free tool gives you the same data without the subscription fee.

Unlike a simple percentage counter, our keyword density analyzer checks:

  • Keyword density for up to 3 focus keywords simultaneously
  • Keyword prominence — does the keyword appear in the first 10% of the content?
  • Top 20 single words, 2-word, and 3-word phrases by frequency
  • Keyword stuffing detection with per-keyword alerts
  • Readability score (Flesch-Kincaid approximation)
  • Visual keyword highlighting in the text preview
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Pair with our Full SEO Analyzer

Keyword density is just one signal. Run a full SEO audit to check title tags, meta descriptions, Core Web Vitals, schema, and 20+ other ranking factors.

Keyword Stuffing Checker — Why Over-Optimisation Hurts

Our built-in keyword stuffing checker flags any keyword or phrase with density above 3%. Keyword stuffing — repeating a keyword excessively to try to rank higher — is a direct violation of Google's spam policies and can result in a manual penalty or algorithmic demotion.

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What is keyword stuffing?

Repeating a keyword unnaturally (e.g. "best keyword density checker free keyword density checker tool check keyword density") to manipulate search rankings. Google detects this through Panda and spam algorithms.

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What density triggers a stuffing warning?

Most SEO experts consider density above 2–3% to be potentially over-optimised. Our keyword stuffing checker flags any keyword above 3% as a risk and recommends reducing it.

How to fix over-optimised content

Replace some exact keyword instances with synonyms, related terms, and natural variations. Use LSI keywords (related terms the tool identifies in the phrase tables) to improve topical depth without repeating exact phrases.

Step-by-Step Guide

How to Check Keyword Density in Your Article — Free

Use our free online keyword density checker to analyse any content in four steps — no account, no limit.

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Paste Text or Fetch URL

Paste your article content into the text box, or enter the URL of any live page to automatically extract its text. Our word density checker strips navigation, ads, and sidebar content — leaving only the main article.

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Enter Focus Keywords

Add up to 3 target keywords. These are the terms you're trying to rank for. Our keyword density analyzer checks each one individually for density, prominence, and stuffing risk.

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Choose Options

Toggle stop-word filtering to exclude common words like "the", "and", "is" from the frequency tables. Enable keyword highlighting to see exactly where each keyword appears in the text.

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Click Analyze

Get your full keyword density report instantly — including density %, prominence score, phrase frequency tables, readability score, and a highlighted text preview with your keywords marked.

Keyword Density Best Practices for 2025

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Aim for Natural Density

Write for readers, not search engines. Naturally written content about a topic will include the keyword at an appropriate density (0.5–2%) without conscious effort. Use the tool to verify after writing — not before.

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Prioritise Keyword Prominence

Place your target keyword in the first 100 words of the article. Google gives extra weight to terms appearing early in the content. Our analyzer flags "Low" prominence if the keyword doesn't appear in the first 10% of the text.

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Use Phrase Variations

The 2-word and 3-word phrase tables show what Google's NLP systems will associate with your content. Include variations from those tables to build topical authority without repeating the exact keyword phrase.

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Balance Readability

High readability scores correlate with lower bounce rates — and lower bounce rates signal quality content to Google. Our readability checker estimates your Flesch score so you can balance keyword density with natural, readable prose.

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Never Keyword Stuff

Density above 3% almost always sounds unnatural to readers and triggers Google's spam filters. If the stuffing detector fires, replace exact matches with synonyms or restructure sentences to reference the topic differently.

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Check Competitor Content

Fetch a top-ranking competitor's URL into this tool to see their keyword density and phrase patterns. This gives you a benchmark for how often the keyword naturally appears in content that Google already ranks at position 1.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ideal keyword density for SEO?
Most SEO experts recommend keeping keyword density between 0.5% and 2% for the primary keyword. This range signals relevance to Google without triggering spam filters. Content in the 2–3% range should be reviewed carefully — at these levels, the keyword repetition can start to sound unnatural. Anything above 3% is flagged as potential keyword stuffing by our tool and should be reduced by replacing some instances with synonyms or natural variations.
How do I check keyword density in an article?
Use the article keyword density checker above. Paste your article text into the content box, enter your target keyword, and click "Analyze Keyword Density." The tool calculates the exact percentage, shows every occurrence in a highlighted preview, and ranks all single-word, 2-word, and 3-word phrases by frequency — so you can see at a glance how your content is weighted.
Can I check keyword density from a URL?
Yes — our online keyword density checker lets you fetch any public URL and analyze its content directly. Enter the page address in the "Fetch from URL" bar at the top of the tool and click "Fetch Text." We extract the visible body text from the page (excluding navigation, footers, and ads) and load it into the analyzer automatically. This is useful for analyzing competitor content.
Does Google care about keyword density?
Google does not use keyword density as a direct ranking factor and has confirmed this publicly. However, keyword density serves as an indirect measure of topical relevance — content that mentions its topic naturally will have appropriate keyword density. What Google does penalise is keyword stuffing, which is easily detected by both algorithms and human quality reviewers. Focus on writing naturally; use this tool to verify you're not accidentally over-optimising.
What is keyword prominence and why does it matter?
Keyword prominence refers to how early in the content the target keyword appears. Google gives more weight to keywords appearing in the first paragraph, title tag, and first 100 words of body content. Our word density checker calculates prominence as a percentage — the earlier the keyword appears, the higher the prominence score. Aim for the keyword to appear in the first 10% of your content.
What are 2-word and 3-word phrase frequency tables?
The 2-word (bigram) and 3-word (trigram) phrase tables show the most common multi-word sequences in your text. These are important because Google understands semantic relationships between words — it doesn't just count individual keywords. If your 2-word phrase table shows "keyword density" appearing 8 times in a 1,000-word article but the phrase "density checker" appears 0 times, that suggests your content is repetitive rather than comprehensive. Use these tables to identify both over-used phrases and content gaps.
What's the difference between keyword density and keyword frequency?
Keyword frequency is the raw count of how many times a keyword appears (e.g. 8 occurrences). Keyword density is the frequency expressed as a percentage of the total word count (e.g. 8 ÷ 1,000 words = 0.8%). Our free keyword density calculator shows both figures for every focus keyword you enter, so you can see the absolute count and the relative density in context.
How do I calculate keyword density manually?
Keyword density = (number of keyword occurrences ÷ total word count) × 100. For example, if "keyword density checker" appears 5 times in a 500-word article, the density is (5 ÷ 500) × 100 = 1%. For exact match phrases, count each full phrase occurrence — not the individual words within it. Our free tool does this automatically for up to 3 keywords simultaneously.

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