Transition Word Counter
Transition words — however, therefore, moreover, finally — are the connective tissue of good prose. Too few and your writing reads like a list; too many and it reads like a term paper. This counter scans your text for a curated set of transitions, tallies how often each one appears, and flags your overall ratio so you can see at a glance whether you lean on them too heavily.
How the counter works
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Paste your draft
Articles, essays and blog posts all work. Aim for at least 200 words for the ratios to mean anything.
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The text is scanned
A regex matches 18 common transitions as whole words, so "therefore" is counted but "furthermorefreak" is not.
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Read the per-word counts
You see which transitions you used and how often. The list is sorted most-used first.
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Check your totals
The total count is your raw signal; divide by your sentence count to get a percentage.
Transitions tracked
The counter looks for these 18 linking words and phrases:
also, although, as a result, because, consequently, finally, first, for example, furthermore, however, in addition, in contrast, meanwhile, moreover, nevertheless, next, therefore, thus.
SEO and readability targets
Yoast SEO and similar plugins target a minimum of 30% of sentences containing a transition word. That is a rough rule and easy to game, but the underlying idea is sound: if more than two thirds of your sentences have no connective, readers will feel the piece is choppy.
| Share of sentences with a transition | Feels like |
|---|---|
| Under 10% | Disjointed, notes-style |
| 10 - 25% | Conversational, short-form |
| 25 - 40% | Balanced long-form or essay |
| 40 - 60% | Academic / heavily argued |
| Over 60% | Overwritten — start cutting |
Overused transitions to watch
- “Furthermore” / “Moreover” in short pieces — they read stiff. “Also” or “and” usually work.
- “Thus” in marketing copy — nearly always a sign of academic hangover.
- “In addition” repeated across a paragraph — vary it with “also”, “on top of that”, or start a new sentence.
- “However” as the first word of three consecutive sentences — restructure.
Tips
- Run the counter after the first draft, not during. Watching the number while you write kills flow.
- If one transition dominates the count, replace half the instances with a different phrase.
- Zero transitions in a 1,000-word article is almost always too few — add three or four at paragraph boundaries.
- Good transitions are often not in the list (em dashes, semicolons, “and so”). The number is a signal, not a mandate.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. It is the figure Yoast SEO popularised. Hitting it is a nice-to-have, not a ranking factor on its own. The real goal is prose that flows.
Not yet — those are phrases rather than single words and they overlap with common English. The list stays conservative to avoid false positives.
The regex matches whole words from the curated list. Adding every variant would inflate the count without adding much signal.
No. The word list is English-only. For Spanish or French you would need a separate transition list.
No. Nothing you paste is sent to a server — counting happens in your browser only.