Type a headline and get a structural score out of 100, built from rules you can read in full below: length bands, pattern checks, and matches against the site's word banks (including the 330-phrase cliche bank). The same headline always gets the same score.
The score, its full breakdown and every matched word appear here as you type.
Your headline never leaves this page. The analysis runs entirely in your browser: no upload, no server, no storage. The share link carries the headline in the URL itself.
This tool scores structure: length, patterns, and matches against published, inspectable word banks. It cannot measure emotional impact, predict clickthrough, or judge meaning. A high score means the headline follows structural patterns; it does not mean readers will click. No tool can promise that.
Every rule the score uses is listed below with its trigger and its point weight, and the table is rendered from the same code constants the scorer runs. Popular headline analyzers report an "emotional value" percentage; there is no defensible basis for such a number, so this tool does not produce one.
Four dimensions, 12 rules, 100 points. Deterministic: the same headline always earns the same points.
| Rule | Trigger | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Word count between 6 and 13 | Headline contains 6 to 13 words | 10 |
| Display-safe in most search results | Estimated width at 20px Arial is 561px or less (roughly 55 characters). Same character-width table as the meta-description checker; an approximation, not a Google guarantee | 10 |
| Rule | Trigger | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Starts with a number | First character is a digit | 7 |
| How-to construction | Contains the phrase "how to" | 6 |
| Question form | Ends with a question mark, or opens with who, what, when, where, why, which or how | 6 |
| Bracketed clarifier | Contains a [bracketed] or (parenthesised) clarifier | 6 |
| Rule | Trigger | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Emotion words | Each distinct match against the site's emotion vocabulary (25 words, shown in full below) earns 5 points, up to 15 | 15 |
| Opens with a working word | The first two words contain no filler word from the site's filler bank (shown in full below) | 10 |
| Rule | Trigger | Points |
|---|---|---|
| No cliches | No match against the site's 330-phrase cliche bank (the manuscript analyzer's bank; every phrase sourced in cliches.SOURCES.md) | 10 |
| No filler words anywhere | No filler-bank word appears anywhere in the headline | 10 |
| Not shouting | 30% or less of the letters are capitals (title case passes; ALL CAPS does not) | 5 |
| No exclamation marks | Zero exclamation marks | 5 |
Every word bank this tool scores against is public. House rule: a bank is either sourced entry by entry or it is not scored at all. Nothing here comes from an unattributed "power words" list.
Marketing power words: omitted. Most headline tools score a proprietary power-word list. We could not verify a public source for such a list entry by entry, and this site does not ship invented word banks, so the dimension is omitted rather than faked. The emotion-word check below uses the site's own small, fully visible vocabulary instead.
Emotion words (the site's own vocabulary, which also powers our Emotion Wheel): joy: happy, joy, excited, love, grateful; sadness: sad, lonely, cry, grief, pain; fear: scared, afraid, nervous, terrified, worried; anger: angry, furious, hate, annoyed, rage; confidence: confident, strong, certain, bold, brave.
Filler words (the bank behind ourDead Word Sandbox):just, really, very, actually, literally, kind of, a bit, sort of, basically, maybe, probably, somewhat, totally.
Cliches: the manuscript analyzer's330-phrase bank, compiled verbatim from three openly licensed lists; every source is logged in the site repository (cliches.SOURCES.md) and explained on theManuscript Style Analyzer page.
The length dimension includes a "display-safe in most search results" check: the headline's estimated width at 20px Arial, measured with the same committed character-width table ourMeta Description Checkeruses, compared with ~561px (roughly 55 characters).Limits from the Screaming Frog SEO Spider user guide defaults (fetched 2026-07-14). An approximation, not a Google guarantee: Google does not publish truncation limits and adjusts them frequently.
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