Paragraph Length Checker
Find the paragraphs that read as walls of text, see how many lines each one takes on a phone, and get them all listed longest first.
Your writing
Long paragraphs are shaded amber and very long ones red, right in the box. Click any paragraph below to jump to it here, selected and ready to break up.
Paragraphs are split on blank lines, which is how almost every editor exports them.
Navigation, sidebars and footers are stripped out first, so the reading applies to the article.
A paragraph is not long because of its word count. It is long when it fills the screen.
How it breaks up
Paragraph by paragraph
One bar per paragraph, in order. Tall bars next to each other are where a page turns into a wall.
Length mix
What to fix
Every paragraph
| # | Paragraph | Words | Sentences | Lines | Verdict |
|---|
A paragraph is long when it fills the screen
Every guide to paragraph length is written in words. Yoast wants you under 150 and warns you past 200. Those are sensible numbers and this tool uses them, because matching the convention means the verdicts here line up with whatever else you are checked by.
But word count is a proxy, and it breaks the moment the screen changes. The same paragraph is five lines on a laptop and twelve on a phone. One of those is a comfortable block and the other is a wall, and most of your readers are holding the phone.
So alongside the word count, every paragraph is laid out at the true content width of the device you choose and the lines are counted. Around eight lines is where a block starts to look daunting. Past twelve it is more than a screenful with nothing to break it, which is where a scanning reader scrolls rather than reads. It is common to find a paragraph that passes every word-count rule and is still seventeen lines on a handset.
What gets flagged
- Too long. Over 150 words is a warning and over 200 is a wall, following Yoast’s thresholds.
- Too many lines. Measured at 375, 414, 768 or 1024 pixels wide, with the page margins taken off.
- Runs of heavy paragraphs. One dense block is survivable. Three or four consecutively is what a wall of text actually looks like, and every stretch is found and located by number.
- Nothing but one-liners. The opposite failure, and a more common one than people expect. A single-sentence paragraph works because it stands out, which means it stops working when every paragraph is one.
- Paragraphs that are too short on average. Very small blocks can leave ideas underdeveloped and the page feeling breathless.
How to fix a wall
Find the sentence where the subject changes. Almost every overlong paragraph is two or three ideas that were never separated, and the join is usually visible once you look for it: a sentence that starts with “however”, or “in addition”, or simply moves on to the next thing. Break there.
If you cannot find a join, the paragraph may be one genuinely long idea, in which case the fix is different. Add a short sentence at the front that says what is coming, so a reader scanning the first line knows whether to invest in the rest.
Work from the top of the table, which is already sorted longest first. Rewriting the three biggest blocks on a page usually does more for readability than any other single edit.
Does it matter for SEO?
Not directly. No search engine measures your paragraphs, and a readability score from a plugin is that plugin’s opinion rather than Google’s. What paragraph length affects is whether people read far enough to find what they came for. A wall in the second paragraph loses readers who would otherwise have stayed, and that behaviour is visible in ways that do matter. Fix it for the reader and the rest follows.
Which tool for which job
- This one for the shape of the page: how the text is broken up and where it becomes a block.
- The Sentence Length Checker for what happens inside those blocks, sentence by sentence.
- The Reading Time Calculator for how long the whole thing takes.
- The Word Counter for live counts while you are still writing it.
Is anything stored?
No. Pasted text is measured in your browser, and switching device only re-measures what is already there rather than fetching anything. Checking a live page sends only the address to our server. Nothing is written to a database or a log either way.
What it checks
A paragraph is not too long because of its word count. It is too long when it fills the screen and the reader scrolls past it.
Lines on a phone
Every paragraph is laid out at the real content width of a phone, a large phone, a tablet or a laptop, and the lines are counted. A 90-word paragraph that looks compact on your monitor can be eleven lines on a handset.
The thresholds Yoast uses
Under 150 words passes, 150 to 200 is a warning, over 200 is too long. Using the same thresholds means the verdicts here line up with what the plugin will tell you, except this works on any text or any live page.
Where the walls are
One bar per paragraph, in order. A single heavy paragraph is fine. Three or four together is what a wall of text actually looks like, and every stretch is found and pointed at by number.
The opposite problem too
A page that is nothing but one-line paragraphs reads as choppy and makes an argument hard to follow. If most of yours are a single sentence, you will be told.
Every paragraph, longest first
Words, sentences, screen lines and a verdict for each one, sorted so the rewriting queue is at the top and filterable down to just the walls.
Text, a live page, or CSV out
Paste a draft or hand it an address and the article is pulled out from behind the navigation and the footer. Take the filtered table away as a CSV to work through.
Questions about paragraph length
How long should a paragraph be?
For writing on the web, under 150 words is a safe ceiling and 40 to 80 is comfortable. That is not a rule of grammar, it is a rule of screens: a reader scanning on a phone judges a block before reading a word of it, and a tall one gets skipped. Print can carry far longer paragraphs because the page is wider and the reader has already committed. The honest answer is that a paragraph should be one idea, and if one idea is taking you 200 words it is probably two ideas.
Why measure screen lines instead of words?
Because the reader sees lines, not words. Word count is a proxy that breaks down as soon as the screen changes: the same paragraph is five lines on a laptop and twelve on a phone, and only one of those is a wall. Most of your readers are on the phone. Each paragraph here is laid out at the true content width for the device you pick, in a typical body size, and the resulting lines are counted. Around eight lines is where a block starts to look daunting and past twelve it is more than a screenful.
What exactly is measured for the line count?
Seventeen pixel serif body text in a column the width of the device minus its usual page margins: 335 pixels on a 375 phone, 370 on a large phone, 672 on a tablet and 804 on a laptop. Your own theme will differ a little, so treat the number as a close estimate rather than an exact match for your site. The comparison between paragraphs, which is what actually matters, holds either way.
Does paragraph length affect SEO?
Not directly. No search engine measures your paragraphs and ranks you accordingly, and Yoast's readability score is Yoast's opinion rather than Google's. What it affects is whether people read far enough to find what they came for. A wall of text in the second paragraph loses readers who would otherwise have stayed, and that shows up in the behaviour search engines can see. Fix it for the reader and the rest follows.
Can a paragraph be too short?
Yes, and it is a more common fault than people expect. A single-sentence paragraph is a strong device precisely because it stands out, which means it stops working when every paragraph is one. A page written entirely in one-liners reads as breathless and gives a reader nothing to hold an argument together. If more than about six in ten of your paragraphs are a single sentence, the tool says so.
Is my text sent anywhere?
Pasted text is split and measured entirely in your browser and never leaves the page. Switching the device only re-measures what is already in the browser, so nothing is fetched again. The exception is checking a page by address, where the address goes to our server, which reads the page and returns the text. Nothing is stored either way.