Keyword Proximity Checker
Two related terms mean more when they sit close together. Paste your content and enter two terms — the tool finds the smallest gap between them, in words, and scores how strongly the page signals them as a connected idea.
Keyword proximity is the smallest number of words between two terms in your content. The closer they sit, the more strongly a search engine reads them as a related phrase rather than two unrelated words. Terms one to three words apart read as a single phrase; terms in the same sentence stay clearly related; terms separated by paragraphs barely connect. Proximity is a phrase-relevance signal — useful when you want a page to rank for a multi-word query.
Keyword Proximity Checker inputs and result
| Distance | What it signals |
|---|
How to use this calculator
- Paste the contentDrop in the page or passage that contains both terms. Proximity is measured across the whole text, so include the sections that matter.
- Enter two termsType the two words or phrases whose closeness you care about — often a head term and a modifier, like a product and a location.
- Read the closest distanceThe headline number is the smallest gap, in words, between any occurrence of the first term and any occurrence of the second.
- Check the proximity scoreThe score scales the distance into a 0 to 100 read: tight pairs score high, scattered pairs score low. The sub-numbers show how many times each term was found.
- Tighten if the phrase mattersIf you want the page to rank for the combined query, rewrite a sentence so the terms sit closer. Then export the result for your editing pass.
RGM Expert Says
Proximity is a subtle on-page signal, and it earns its keep on pages targeting multi-word queries — a service plus a city, a product plus a use case. We have seen pages that technically contain every word of the target phrase yet rank poorly because those words are scattered across three paragraphs. Bringing them into the same sentence, naturally, often does more than adding new content.
We use this the way an editor uses a red pen, not the way a spammer uses a keyword. The goal is never to jam two terms next to each other in a way that reads strangely; it is to notice when a sentence has drifted so far that the connection a reader would make is lost. When the gap is large, the fix is usually a cleaner sentence, not a contrived one.
Where proximity really matters is local and long-tail work. A page meant to rank for a service in a specific city needs those two ideas to read as one offering, not as a service mentioned at the top and a city mentioned in the footer. The score gives us a fast read on whether the page actually says the thing it is trying to rank for.
How it works
The tool finds every position of each term, then measures the smallest absolute distance between any occurrence of the first term and any occurrence of the second, and scales it into a score.
- Position(A), Position(B) — the word indexes where each term appears.
- Distance — the smallest gap, in words, between any A and any B.
- Proximity score — distance scaled to 0 to 100, where adjacent terms score near 100 and a 30-word gap scores 0.
The 30-word scaling window is an RGM convention chosen so adjacent terms score near 100% and roughly a paragraph apart scores near 0%; the underlying distance is exact. Proximity is one of several relevance signals, not a published ranking factor on its own.
Why closeness signals a connected idea
Search engines do not read a page as a bag of isolated words; they weigh how words relate. Terms that sit close together are far more likely to express a single concept than terms scattered across a document, which is part of how engines match multi-word and passage-level queries. The principle is intuitive: a sentence that says the two things together makes the connection a stray pair of words never will.
This matters most for multi-word and long-tail targets. A page chasing a combined phrase — a category plus a qualifier, a service plus a place — needs those ideas adjacent or at least in the same sentence. Pages that contain all the words but keep them apart routinely underperform pages that say the phrase plainly. Our work on keyword research and long-tail keywords leans on exactly this.
The caution is the same as with every on-page lever: do not contort the writing to win the metric. Tight proximity should be the byproduct of a clear sentence, not a forced collision of terms. When the gap is too wide, rewrite for clarity and the proximity improves on its own. Our on-page SEO guide covers how these signals fit together.
Proximity bands and what they mean
These bands translate the smallest word gap into a practical relevance read. Closer is stronger, with diminishing returns past a sentence.
| Distance | Relationship | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| 1–3 words | Reads as one phrase | Exact multi-word query targets |
| 4–10 words | Same sentence | Natural related-term relevance |
| 11–25 words | Same paragraph | Loose topical association |
| Over 25 words | Effectively unrelated | Rewrite if the phrase matters |
What SEO voices say about relevance
Relevance is built sentence by sentence. Say the thing you want to rank for, clearly, in one place — do not make the reader assemble it from scraps.
Write the way people search and the way people read. The two are closer than most SEOs think.