- What are spam trigger words?
- Spam trigger words are phrases that email spam filters — and the people reading your email — associate with unsolicited bulk email. Filters like SpamAssassin, Gmail's ML classifier, and Microsoft Defender use these patterns as signals. High-weight phrases like "act now", "free money", and "guaranteed winner" can push a message's spam score above the folder threshold even if every other signal looks clean. Avoiding them is one of the fastest ways to improve inbox placement rate (IPR).
- Will removing all flagged words guarantee my email lands in the inbox?
- No single check guarantees deliverability. Spam filters are multi-signal systems: they also weigh sender reputation (IP/domain), SPF/DKIM/DMARC authentication, list hygiene, engagement history, and HTML structure. This tool focuses on the content-signal layer — removing flagged words reduces one risk factor and also makes your copy clearer and less pushy for real readers. Combine it with a proper authentication setup and a clean list for best results.
- Why does my score go up just from the subject line?
- Subject lines receive a 2× weight multiplier in this checker, matching how most commercial spam filters actually behave. The subject is the first thing a filter sees and the field most abused by spammers, so a single high-weight trigger in the subject (e.g. "FREE!!!" or "YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED") raises the score more than the same word buried deep in a long body paragraph.
- Is my email text stored or sent anywhere?
- No. The entire analysis runs in JavaScript inside your browser tab. Nothing is transmitted to any server — not even anonymised analytics. You can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and the checker will continue to work. This is especially important for confidential marketing copy or internal communications.
- What is a safe spam score?
- This tool's 0–100 score is a relative risk indicator, not a direct mapping to any filter's threshold. As a practical guide: 0–19 is Low risk (clean copy, good to send); 20–39 is Moderate (a few flags — review highlighted words); 40–59 is High (multiple triggers — rewrite before sending); 60–100 is Very High (likely to be filtered — significant rewrite needed). Subject lines with ALL-CAPS or multiple exclamation marks are the fastest wins.
- Does ALL CAPS really affect spam filtering?
- Yes, significantly. Words written entirely in capitals (FREE, WINNER, ACT NOW) are treated as distinct high-weight signals by most rule-based filters and are a strong feature in ML classifiers trained on spam corpora. Even a single ALL-CAPS word in a subject line can add several points to SpamAssassin's score. The fix is simple: use sentence case or title case instead.