How this works in your browser
The text is split on whitespace and punctuation into individual words, lowercased so that capitalisation does not fragment the counts, and tallied into a frequency map that is then sorted by count. No stop-word list is applied, which is deliberate: any fixed list of words to ignore is wrong for some purpose, and showing the raw distribution lets you decide what counts as noise. Words are counted as exact strings, so different inflections of the same root are separate entries. Everything runs in your browser, which is what makes it usable on an unpublished manuscript.
Who uses Word Frequency Counter
Editing your own writing
Find the words you lean on without realising.
Checking topical coverage
See whether a piece emphasises what you intended it to.
Analysing a text
Get a quick quantitative view of any document.
Studying a source
See which terms a paper or article returns to most.
Frequently asked questions
Are common words like "the" and "and" included?
Yes, by default all words are counted. This makes very common words dominate the top of the list, which is expected for raw frequency analysis.
Is capitalization treated separately?
No, words are compared case-insensitively, so "Text" and "text" count as the same word.
Is my text sent anywhere?
No, the counting happens entirely in your browser.
How do I get past "the" and "and" dominating the list?
Scroll down. The top of any raw frequency list is always function words, and the interesting signal starts a few dozen entries in, where the words specific to your subject appear. Reading past the common words is more reliable than filtering, since which words count as filler depends on what you are looking for.
How does this help my writing?
By showing crutch words you cannot see yourself. Most writers overuse a handful of terms without noticing, and seeing one appear forty times in two thousand words is a prompt to vary it. The same list also reveals whether your draft actually emphasises what you intended.
Is this useful for SEO?
As a sanity check on whether a page covers its subject, yes. As a target to hit, no. Keyword density stopped being a meaningful ranking factor a long time ago, and writing to a percentage produces text that reads badly, which search engines now assess directly.
How are words counted?
Case-insensitively, so Text and text are one entry. Different forms of the same word are counted separately, since run and running are distinct strings, which is worth remembering when a concept appears more often than any single row suggests.