How to Count Words on a Web Page

Method 1: select and paste

1. Click just before the first word of the article, then shift-click just after the last word to select everything in between.
2. Copy with Ctrl/⌘ + C.
3. Paste into the word counter.

This counts exactly what you selected, which is usually what you want: the article, without the navigation, sidebar, cookie banner and footer.

Ctrl/⌘ + A also works, but it selects the whole page, menus and all. On a typical article that can add 100 to 300 words.

Method 2: reader mode

Reader mode strips a page down to its title and body text, which makes it the most reliable way to count only the article.

• Safari: click the reader icon in the address bar, or press ⌘ + Shift + R.
• Firefox: click the reader view icon in the address bar, or press F9 on Windows.
• Edge: click the Immersive Reader icon in the address bar, or press F9.
• Chrome: open the menu, choose More tools → Reading mode. It opens in a side panel.

Then select all the text in reader mode, copy it, and paste it into the word counter.

Method 3: the browser console

To count every word on the page in one step:

1. Press F12 (or ⌘ + Option + I on Mac) to open the developer tools, and choose the Console tab.
2. Paste this line and press Enter:

document.body.innerText.split(/\s+/).filter(Boolean).length

The number that appears is the count of every visible word on the page, including the menus and footer. To count only the article, on most sites you can swap document.body for document.querySelector('article'). If that returns an error, the site does not use an article element, and the select-and-paste method is easier.

Counting a whole website

Counting every page of a site means fetching each page, which a browser tab cannot do on its own. For a handful of pages, repeat one of the methods above. For a whole site, use an SEO crawler: most of them report a word count for every page they crawl.

What to do with the number

• Comparing against competitors? Word count on its own tells you little. It is more useful to check what the top-ranking pages cover that yours does not.
• Checking repetition? Paste the text into the keyword density checker to see which words and phrases dominate.
• Estimating reading time? Divide by 238 words per minute, or let the word counter do it for you.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a Chrome extension for word count? Several, but copying into a counter is just as quick and needs no permission to read every page you visit.

Why does my count differ from the one the site shows? The site probably counts its article body only, while a select-all copy includes captions, menus and related links.