Free tool Keyword density checker with phrase counts
Paste an article and see which words and phrases it leans on, how often your target keyword appears, and where. There is no "ideal" percentage here, because Google does not publish one. What the tool does flag are the patterns Google describes as keyword stuffing.
- Words, phrases and targets
- English and Chinese
- Runs locally
Check keyword density
Paste the body text of one page, without the menu and footer. Add the keywords you are targeting to see their counts and positions. Results update as you type.
Paste the article or page copy. Language is detected automatically; mixed English and Chinese works too.
Up to 10, separated by commas or new lines. English matches whole words, ignoring case; plurals and synonyms are not merged.
Hide words and phrases below this count. Chinese terms always need at least 2 occurrences.
Total words
114
Chinese characters plus words in other scripts, same rule as the word counter.
Sentences
7
Split at . ! ? 。！？ and line breaks.
Distinct content words
60
Different English words after removing stop words.
Target keywords
Density = occurrences × words in the keyword ÷ total words.
| Keyword | Count | Density | First appears |
|---|---|---|---|
page speed | 3 | 5.26% | Sentence 1 of 7 |
Core Web Vitals | 1 | 2.63% | Sentence 4 of 7 |
Stuffing check
Based on the three examples of keyword stuffing in Google's spam policies. A warning means "read this part again", not a penalty.
- OKNo in-sentence repetition, keyword lists or number lists found. This checks patterns, not quality: still read the page as a visitor would.
Where the target keywords appear
page speedCore Web VitalsTop single words
Stop words and numbers left out.
| Word | Count | Density |
|---|---|---|
| page | 4 | 3.51% |
| speed | 3 | 2.63% |
| content | 2 | 1.75% |
| loading | 2 | 1.75% |
| show | 2 | 1.75% |
| visitors | 2 | 1.75% |
Top 2-word phrases
Phrases never cross punctuation or a line break.
| Phrase | Count | Density |
|---|---|---|
| page speed | 3 | 5.26% |
Top 3-word phrases
Top Chinese terms (approximate)
Split at punctuation and function characters, then counted as 2–6 character strings. A shorter string that only ever appears inside a longer one is folded into it.
Version v1.0Updated Update history
What the numbers can and cannot tell you
Keyword density is a description of the text, not a score. Use it to see what a page is really about and to catch repetition you no longer notice after five drafts.
Density
How much of the text is taken up by a word or phrase. A two-word phrase used 3 times in 114 words takes up 6 of them, 5.26%. Some tools divide the count alone by total words (2.63% here), so compare numbers only within one tool.
Top words and phrases
The topic the text actually signals. If the phrase you want to rank for is not near the top but a generic word is, the page may be about something slightly different from what you intended.
First appears
Which sentence first mentions each target. Mentioning the main topic early helps readers confirm they are in the right place; it is a reading cue, not a ranking rule.
Stuffing check
Repetition inside one sentence, lists of short keywords and lists of long numbers. These follow the examples in Google's spam policies, and they are heuristics: a product spec table can trip the list check legitimately.
There is no target percentage on this page. Google's documentation does not give one; what it does describe is keyword stuffing, defined in its spam policies as "filling a web page with keywords or numbers" to manipulate rankings.
Check one page in a minute
Works on drafts before publishing and on live pages you are rewriting.
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1
Paste the body text
Copy the article from your editor or the page. Leave out menus, sidebars and footers, which repeat on every page and skew the counts.
-
2
Add your target keywords
Type the phrase you want the page to be found for, plus one or two close variants. The text below marks every occurrence in colour.
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3
Read the tables
Do the top phrases match the topic? Is a filler word dominating? Are synonyms missing because one wording is used everywhere?
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4
Fix what sounds unnatural
Act on the stuffing warnings and on anything that reads oddly aloud. Then check with real search data which queries the page earns.
Density = occurrences × keyword length ÷ total words
Keyword length is in words for English and in characters for Chinese. Total words follow the word counter: each Chinese character is one, other text counts by word.
- English words are runs of letters or digits;
e-mailanddon'tare one word, a possessive'sis dropped, case is ignored - Stop words come from the NLTK English stop word list (198 words, derived from the Snowball project). Phrases may contain them in the middle, as in
return on investment, but cannot start or end with one unless you include stop words - Phrases never cross punctuation, a line break or a change of script, so "speed. Page" is not counted as a phrase
- Chinese uses the approximate method described below the tables, without a dictionary. Target keywords are matched exactly, as typed
| Table | What is counted | Example → result |
|---|---|---|
| Single words | Content words, no stop words or numbers | "the page speed" → page, speed |
| 2- and 3-word phrases | Adjacent words with only spaces between them | "page speed. Page" → page speed |
| Chinese terms | 2–6 characters between punctuation and function characters | "跳出率高的页面" → 跳出率高, 页面 |
| Target keyword | Whole-word, case-insensitive match | "Speed" matches "speed", not "speedy" |
| Density | Count × words in keyword ÷ total words | 3 × 2 ÷ 114 = 5.26% |
The example text, counted
The default text on this page is a 114-word note about page speed, with "page speed" and "Core Web Vitals" as targets.
| Word or phrase | Count | Density (this tool) | Count ÷ words |
|---|---|---|---|
| page speed (target) | 3 | 5.26% | 2.63% |
| Core Web Vitals (target) | 1 | 2.63% | 0.88% |
| page | 4 | 3.51% | 3.51% |
| speed | 3 | 2.63% | 2.63% |
| visitors | 2 | 1.75% | 1.75% |
| content | 2 | 1.75% | 1.75% |
"page speed" appears first in sentence 1 and "Core Web Vitals" in sentence 4 of 7. No warnings: the phrase is used once per sentence at most. For single words the two conventions give the same number; they differ only for phrases.
How keyword density gets misused
Most of the damage comes from treating a descriptive number as a target.
Writing to a percentage
Adding a keyword until it hits 2% or 3% is the habit Google's keyword stuffing policy describes. Write the sentence the reader needs, then check that the main topic is clearly named.
Ignoring variants
The tool counts exact wording. "Page speed", "load time" and "site speed" are separate. Using natural variants is normal; check them as separate targets if they matter.
Pasting the whole page
Navigation, cookie notices and footers repeat on every page and push their words to the top. Paste only the main content.
Judging a short text
In a 60-word product blurb one mention is already about 2%. Density is more meaningful on full articles than on titles or snippets.
From the words you use to the queries you win
Density shows what a page says. TapCub shows which searches actually lead to it and whether visitors stay once they arrive.
Search performance
Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster clicks, impressions and position by query and page, side by side with your analytics.
Learn moreContent decay alerts
Get told when a page starts losing search traffic, so you know which articles to rewrite first.
Learn morePage reports
Visitors, views, time on page, bounce and exit rate for every page.
Learn moreKeyword density questions
Still have a question?
Chat with the team behind TapCub — we usually reply within a few hours on business days.
What is keyword density?
The share of a text taken up by a given word or phrase. This tool calculates it as occurrences × words in the keyword ÷ total words. A two-word phrase used 3 times in 114 words gives 5.26%.
What is the ideal keyword density for SEO?
There isn't a published one. Google's documentation gives no target percentage, and its spam policies list keyword stuffing, repeating words until they sound unnatural, as a violation. Use the numbers to spot over-repetition and missing topics, not to hit a figure.
How is keyword density calculated?
Count how many times the keyword appears, multiply by the number of words in it, and divide by the total word count. Some tools skip the multiplication; for single words both methods agree, for phrases they differ. This page shows the convention it uses next to every result.
How does the tool handle Chinese?
Chinese is written without spaces, so the tool splits text at punctuation and common function characters such as 的, 了, 是, then counts strings of 2–6 characters. It is an approximation without a dictionary, so treat the Chinese table as a guide. Target keywords you type are matched exactly, and density divides by total characters.
Why are words like "the" and "and" missing?
They are stop words, which every text uses heavily whatever its topic. Leaving them out lets the content words show. Tick "Include stop words" to count them.
Does it count plurals and synonyms?
No. "Keyword" and "keywords" are different strings here. Add the variants as extra targets if you want to compare them.
How is this different from the word counter?
The word counter measures length: words, characters, sentences and reading time. This tool looks at which words and phrases fill that length and where your target keyword appears. The total word count uses the same rule in both.
Is my text uploaded?
No. Everything runs in your browser. The text is not saved, not added to the page address and not sent to TapCub.
Update history
New features, fixes and data refreshes for this tool, newest first.
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· v1.0
LaunchedFirst release.
Missing something or found an error? Tell us — requests that come up often go into the next update. All tool updates
See which searches find your pages
Connect Search Console to TapCub and every page shows its queries, clicks and position next to time on page and conversions.