Keyword extraction means finding what a passage is actually about. From "the checkout page was slow and the coupon field never worked," the useful keywords are checkout speed and coupon field, not "the" and "was."
Google Sheets can split text into words. It cannot tell which words matter.
The Old Way (SPLIT, FLATTEN, and a Stopword List)
The formula route breaks text into words, drops the common ones, and counts what is left.
=QUERY(FLATTEN(SPLIT(A1," ")), "select Col1, count(Col1) where Col1 <> 'the' group by Col1 order by count(Col1) desc")Then you maintain a stopword list to strip "and," "was," "it," and a hundred others. It still returns single words, so "checkout page" comes back as two useless fragments. It has no idea that "slow" and "sluggish" are the same complaint. It counts, it does not understand.
The FITS Way (Ask for the Topics)
With FITS, you ask for the keywords and the AI returns the real topics, phrases included.
=FITS("Extract the 3 main keywords or topics from " & A1 & ", separated by commas")It returns "checkout speed, coupon field" instead of "the, was, page." Want to steer it toward a theme?
=FITS("Pull the product features mentioned in this review: " & A1)No stopword list, no FLATTEN. It groups synonyms and keeps multi-word phrases together because it reads for meaning.
When to Use Each
A SPLIT and count is fine when you only need a raw word frequency. Reach for =FITS() when you want the actual topics, phrases, or themes. The same reading ability lets you classify text into categories or count how often a word appears. Keyword extraction is one job on a long list. Read the full guide to automating Google Sheets tasks you used to need regex for.
Stop Counting Words That Do Not Matter
FITS puts plain-English AI formulas inside Google Sheets. Ask for the topics. Get the ones that count. Free tier included.