How to Check How Many Words a Competitor Wrote (And Why It Matters)

Picture this: you're at a buffet. One plate is piled high with delicious food. Another plate has just a sad little cracker. Which one do you want? Google feels the same way about web pages. When you check how many words a competitor wrote, you're basically measuring how much effort Google thinks they put in.

Google loves thorough, helpful content. A page with 2,000 words tends to rank better than one with 300 words — all else being equal. That's because longer content can cover topics in depth, answer more questions, and keep readers happy. So the first step to beating your competition is knowing their word count. It's like knowing the enemy's troop size before a battle.

The most straightforward way to check how many words a competitor wrote is to copy their page's text and paste it into a word counter. Here's how:

• Open your competitor's blog post or article in your browser.
• Select all the main content (skip the header, footer, and sidebars).
• Copy it (Ctrl+C or Cmd+C).
• Paste it into a free tool like our Count Words from URL or just paste into a blank document and use your word processor's word count feature.

This method works great for a quick check. But if you need to analyze many pages, you'll want something faster.

If you want to check how many words a competitor wrote without all the copying and pasting, use a tool that counts words directly from a URL. Our Count Words from URL tool does exactly that. Just paste the competitor's page URL, hit go, and you'll see the total word count in seconds.

This is perfect for when you're researching multiple competitors. You can quickly compare word counts across their top-ranking pages. It's like having a spyglass that reveals how much content each page holds.