Keyword Frequency Counter
- 28
- Words in text
- 15
- Terms counted
- 2
- Distinct terms shown
The counter tallies how often each word or phrase appears in a text and shows the density as a percentage. It filters out the closed-class words that top every raw frequency list (the, of, and, to) and counts two-, three- and four-word phrases, which is where the useful patterns usually are.
How it works
Text is lowercased and split into words on letter and digit boundaries, keeping apostrophes so "it's" stays one word. Density is each term's share of all counted terms, not of the raw word count, so filtering changes the denominator honestly rather than inflating percentages.
- The stop-word list holds about 130 function words. Without filtering, "the" is the top result for almost any English text and tells you nothing.
- For phrases, stop words are only excluded at the edges. "rate of return" survives because the stop word is in the middle, while "of the" is dropped.
- The minimum word length filter removes short abbreviations and stray letters that survive the stop-word list.
- The minimum count filter hides the long tail of terms used once, which is most of the vocabulary in any real text.
On density: there is no target percentage. Google has said repeatedly that keyword density is not a ranking factor, and writing to hit a number produces text that reads badly. The number is useful as a symptom. A term at 6% usually means the writing is repetitive, not that it is well optimised.
Examples
Single words with filtering on
Text
A short paragraph about content marketing
Result
content 4 (26.7%) · marketing 3 (20.0%)
With filtering off, "the" and "is" would take the top spots and the actual subject of the text would be buried below them.
Two-word phrases
Phrase length
2
Result
content marketing 2
The phrase count is what tells you the text is about content marketing specifically, rather than about content and about marketing separately.
A phrase containing a stop word
Phrase
rate of return
Result
Counted, because the stop word is in the middle
Filtering only at the edges keeps meaningful phrases intact while still discarding fragments like "of the" and "in a".
Frequently asked questions
What keyword density should I aim for?
None. Google has stated plainly that keyword density is not a ranking factor, and writing toward a percentage produces repetitive text that readers abandon. Use the number to notice when a term is overused, not as a target.
Why are common words excluded by default?
Because they dominate every raw frequency count without saying anything about the text. "The" is the most common word in almost any English document. Filtering them out is what makes the list describe the subject rather than the language.
How are phrases counted across sentence boundaries?
The text is treated as one stream of words, so a phrase can span a full stop. For long documents this is rarely noticeable; for short text with many sentence breaks, treat two-word counts near sentence ends with a little scepticism.
Does it count "run" and "running" as the same word?
No. There is no stemming, so each form is counted separately. Stemming would merge them but also merges words that should stay apart, and hiding that behind a single number would be worse than showing both forms.
Why is the density percentage different from what another tool reports?
Because the denominator differs. Here density is the share of counted terms after filtering. Tools that divide by the total raw word count report smaller numbers for the same text. Neither is wrong; compare only within one tool.