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Paste any article, page content, or draft and instantly see the density of 1-word, 2-word, and 3-word phrases. Catch over-optimisation before it triggers a Google quality penalty — results appear in real time as you type.
📊 Try the free Keyword Density Checker →Keyword density is the percentage of times a specific keyword or phrase appears in a piece of content relative to the total word count. For example, if a 1,000-word article uses a phrase 20 times, that phrase has a 2% keyword density. The formula is: (keyword occurrences / total word count) × 100.
Keyword density was a significant SEO ranking factor in early search engine algorithms, where simply repeating a keyword more often could improve rankings. Modern Google uses much more sophisticated language models (including BERT, MUM, and natural language understanding) to assess topical relevance, so optimal keyword density today is about natural, reader-focused writing — not mathematical targets. However, extremely high density (above 4–5%) remains a signal Google associates with keyword stuffing and can trigger quality downgrades.
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While there is no ideal "target" keyword density, repeating a keyword unnaturally frequently — particularly exact-match repetition — can trigger Google's Panda and spam quality systems. Content where a single keyword appears at 5%+ density typically reads unnaturally, and Google's quality raters and algorithms recognize this pattern.
If your primary keyword barely appears in your content despite being the stated topic, Google may not understand the page's topical focus. A 0.5–2% density range for your primary phrase typically indicates natural inclusion. Use variations and related terms (LSI keywords) alongside the primary term.
You may not notice a 2-word phrase like "content marketing" appearing 15 times in a 500-word article — that's a 3% density for that bigram. Checking 2 and 3-word phrase frequencies catches these patterns that single-word analysis misses, helping you diversify your language naturally.
Paste competitor content to see which keyword phrases they emphasize. Comparing your density map against top-ranking pages for a keyword gives you insight into the natural language patterns Google rewards for that topic.
Copy and paste your article, landing page text, or draft into the text area. The tool automatically strips stop words (the, a, is, etc.) and calculates word count, read time, and character count.
The unigrams tab shows your top single-word keywords with their count and density percentage. Check for any words showing density above 4% — these are highlighted as over-optimization warnings.
Switch to the 2-word and 3-word tabs to see bigram and trigram frequencies. These often reveal more meaningful over-optimization patterns than single words.
Replace exact-match repetitions with synonyms, related terms, or pronoun references. Paste the revised content back to confirm density is in the natural range.
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There is no single ideal keyword density. Google's algorithms focus on topical relevance, user intent matching, and content quality — not a specific percentage. A well-written article naturally uses primary keywords at around 1–2% density. The key warning zone is above 4%, where content starts to feel repetitive to readers and to Google's language models. Focus on writing for humans; the density will be natural.
Not directly as a positive signal — Google doesn't reward higher density. However, very low density (a topic mentioned once) may mean Google doesn't associate the page with that topic. Very high density (5%+) can be a negative signal associated with keyword stuffing. The practical goal is natural language that covers the topic thoroughly, which typically produces a healthy density as a byproduct.
For keyword density analysis, stop words (common words like "the", "and", "is", "of") are typically excluded because they don't carry topical relevance. Our tool excludes a comprehensive stop word list when calculating unigram densities. However, some multi-word phrases inherently include function words (e.g., "how to do" — "to" and "do" might be excluded from individual word counts but appear in bigram/trigram results).
Yes. When auditing existing content that has lost rankings, keyword density analysis can reveal whether the content has been unintentionally over-optimized over time (through multiple revisions adding the keyword) or if the content has drifted off-topic. Comparing density maps of newly-ranked vs. previously-ranked content can also inform content refresh strategies.
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