keyword density

The math is simple. Count how many times your keyword appears, divide by the total words, multiply by 100. A 1,000-word page that uses running shoes eight times sits at 0.8%. For years SEO tools shipped a target band (often 1 to 3 percent), and writers padded copy to hit it.

That band is folklore. Google’s John Mueller put it plainly: the first mention or two of a word can help Google understand the page, but saying it seven or eight times does not add ranking power. Google’s own documentation offers no optimal density figure, and its systems can work out a page topic even when the exact phrase never appears.

Where density crosses into a penalty

Pushing the percentage up on purpose is how pages drift into keyword stuffing, which Google defines as filling a web page with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate rankings. That is a named spam policy violation, handled mostly by algorithms rather than manual review. Lists of cities, phone numbers with no added value, and the same term jammed into every sentence until it reads awkwardly are the classic tells.

The useful replacement is topical coverage. Instead of counting one phrase, cover the entities, questions, and subtopics a reader (and an AI answer engine) expect. That is what earns both a Google ranking and a citation inside an AI Overview or a ChatGPT answer.