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Electronic Mail

Words to Avoid in E-Mail Messages

SUMMARY: When sending e-mail, there may be some words you should avoid that can label your e-mail as spam.

In today's world where 80%, 90%, or higher of all electronic mail is spam, many people, companies, and organizations employ the use of e-mail filters. These can help reduce the deluge of spam to a mere trickle.

While spam filters use a variety of techniques to determine which e-mail is unsolicited, containing malware links, etc., one popular technique is the scanning of e-mail subjects or messages themselves for various keywords and phrases. The more a particular e-mail message uses these words or phrases, the greater the chance the e-mail is spam and may be either automatically deleted or moved to a 'spam' folder.

Unfortunately, it is entirely possible that you may accidentally use some of these words in your own messages, whether they are personal or legitimate business e-mail. Thus, here are a few words you may wish to avoid in your e-mail communications. Note that this is not by any means an exhaustive list since each spam filter uses its own rules and keywords:

* aging
* and more
* dear friend
* free
* guarantee
* important
* lottery
* medicine
* mortgage
* pharmacy
* pill
* property
* rates
* urgent

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The MalekTips website was created in 1998 by Andrew Malek of Envision Programming. The page's goal is to freely disperse computer-related tips, hints, and informative articles. Tips are organized to be easy to find, and are presented clearly, in easy-to-understand language. MalekTips also provides information and links to public-domain, open source, freeware, shareware, and commercial software available for download. < more >