Email Subject Lines Words that trigger Spam filters

The easiest way to get your emails a direct route to the SPAM folder are the words utilized in your subject line. SpamAssassin is an open-source spam blocking application who publishes their rules for identifying SPAM on their Wiki.

Here are the rules SpamAssassin utilizes with words in the subject line:

• The subject line is blank (Thanks Alan!)
• The subject contains the words alert, response, assistance, proposal, reply, warning, notification, greeting, matter, credited, owe, indebted, debt, obligation or reactivation… or misspellings of those words.
• The subject line contains the month abbreviated (example: May)
• The subject line contains the words cialis, levitra, soma, valium or xanax.
• The subject line begins with “Re: new”
• The subject line contains “a bigger”
• The subject line contains “approves you” or “approved”
• The subject line contains “at no cost”
• The subject line contains “security measures”
• The subject line contains “cheap”
• The subject line contains “low rates”
• The subject line contains the words “as seen”.
• The subject line begins with a dollar sign ($) or spammy looking monetary reference.
• The subject line contains the words “your bills”.
• The subject line contains the words “your family”.
• The subject line contains the words “no prescription” or “online pharmaceutical”.
• The subject line starts with lose, “weight loss”, or talks about losing weight or pounds.
• The subject line starts with buy or buying.
• The subject says something bad about teens.
• The subject line starts with “Do you dream”, “Do you have”, “Do you want”, “Do you love”, etc.
• The subject line is ALL CAPITALS.
• The subject line contains the first part of the email address (example: subject contains “Dave” and the email is addressed to dave@domain.com).
• The subject line contains sexually-explicit content.
• The subject line attempts to obfuscate or misspell words. (example: c1alis, x@nax)
• The subject line contains an English or Japanese UCE code.
• The subject line contains Korean unsolicited email tag.

In the event you didn’t know where the word SPAM came from, here you go: