This page enables you to count (and see) the "real" words in a string. This excludes HTML tags, code, HTML entities (stuff like ©), and if you like, one-letter words ("I", "a", individual digits). You can count words in an arbitrary string that you paste in, or you can point to a Web page and count the words there. (The notion of "words" in a Web page does include stuff like menus and all the other boilerplate that appears on pages.)
Arbitrary text Web page from URL Include 1-letter words?