Technicians at ActivSoftware recently analyzed over two hundred thousand tokens, also referred to as words, in a bayesian spam filter on one of their busier local email servers. They analyzed dozens of items within the data. The most compelling was the spam to ham ratios. Ham is defined as legitimate email sent by legitimate email senders. The compiled list of over 50 words with the highest spam to ham ratio was the result.

Words like ‘click’ and ‘here’ don’t show up as high, since they are used so often in legitimate email. The ActivSoftware list also reveals that words like ‘madam’ which is rarely found in legitimate email, while readily found in spam email, had very high ratios. Using this method the team produced a superior list of words found in spam email ordered not just by frequency of usage in spam, but offset by the frequency of usage in legitimate emails. The words are ordered from highest to lowest Spam to Ham ratio.

This study empowered the coders and business employees at ActivSoftware with an increased ability to continue to track and, according to the team at ActivSoftware, eliminate the negative impacts of spam on the business community. The team at ActivSoftware continues to attempt to learn spammers in order to increase the effectiveness and deliverability for customers using XM Mail Server.

Here’s the top ten:

• homeowner
• discreet
• madam
• materially
• unclaimed
• anticipates
• soma
• preapproved
• unconditionally
• beneficiary

Note: This list has been updated and might change frequently as we continue to hone it in. The newer version, 8/8/05, also includes bid information from Overture as well as the Spam:Ham ratios.

See the newest spam to ham word list

Rob Thrasher and Pete Freitag are published nationally on a weekly basis on topics including Web marketing, email software, email deliverability, small business (zero budget) marketing, coding, and business software engineering.

Some people actually like spicy meat in a can. But nobody likes email spam. That’s why anti-spam filters are a good thing. Most email programs come with built-in filters. Add-on filters are also available that function as email proxies. The spam filter lives on your computer like a local email server, acting as a proxy between your ISP’s mail server and your email client, such as Eudora or Outlook. Once it’s installed, the add-on filter checks your mail, filters out all the spam it can identify, and then sorts or deletes it according to your preferences.

Spam Filters for Windows Users

Add-on spam filters, like other software, are designed to operate with specific configurations. Windows users will find the widest selection and easiest access to programs. You can search and download a program that’s compatible with any version of Windows on the vendor’s websites.

For users with POP3 or IMAP accounts or folks who use other email services such as AOL, Yahoo!, or Hotmail, an add-on spam program for Windows might still work. Many of these accounts can be filtered via your Outlook or Outlook Express applications and are therefore compatible with Windows software.

In fact, some of the newer filters offer plug-ins that filter messages on your handheld email device. Anti-spam on the go!

Spam Filters for Mac and Other Users

A quick web search should result in several anti-spam options for Mac users. Most are compatible with Mail or Eudora email clients. Some Mac-friendly filters are even capable of filtering mail in POP3, IMAP, and Exchange accounts.

For users employing other operating systems, such as a Linux box, add-on anti-spam options do exist. Try searching the Mac compatible programs to find versatile software.

Spam Filters for the Computer Challenged

If downloading software and following an endless series of setup box instructions isn’t your favorite way to spend the afternoon, fear not. Spam filters maintained at an offsite server could work for you.

If you have very little memory left on your hard drive or you just don’t like configuring software, try one of the subscription services available online. For a small monthly fee, your messages will be routed through their filters before arriving in your inbox relatively spam-free.

A Life Without Spam

Most users find that adding on an anti-spam program is well worth the small cost and minimal time investment. To choose the right software for your computer, be sure you know your system requirements and make a list of the features that are important to you. You could be headed for a spam-free future.

Amy Durham is a full-time freelance writer specializing in business, IT, home decorating, gardening, and inspirational writing. Her work has appeared in Facility Manager, InStore, The Source, First Home, D Magazine, Texas Family Magazine, and several online publications. As an expert author, she ghostwrites original articles for website content, newsletters, blogs, and e-zines. She is also the author of an online inspirational course for writers and several e-books. Please visit her website http://www.MooJuiceMedia.com.

For most of us, changing our primary email address to get rid of spam is not really an option. This is because our email addresses are known and used by many of our contacts and may also be printed on business cards and other material. We certainly don’t move to a different residence because of some junk mail in our letter boxes. Luckily, there are some very effective ways to combat spam and one such was is using a Spam filtering tool.

The particular tool that I am referring to is called MailWasher. It is a tool that I cannot do without. I’ve been using it for about 2 years now and my running totals shows that 72% of emails received are automatically deleted by Mailwasher. For more product information on Mailwasher, please visit: www.BSDRegister.com/products/mailwasher

Mailwasher is a piece of software that works at the source i.e. it connects directly to your inbox on the server and takes care of emails there. This is very different to using email filters in your email software for example Outlook or Thunderbird. The major difference is that Mailwasher wipes out emails on the email server so that you never have to download them. Having a filter in Outlook would mean that the email has to first be downloaded onto your computer and then examined and dealt with accordingly. For those messages spreading viruses, this could well pose a threat.

Mailwasher is easy to setup and takes a few minutes. There is a 30-day free trial of the software so that you can have ample time to decide if it is working for you. Initially, I started setting up my own spam filters and was having some success, but then I stumbled upon a link on the company’s website that pointed to a link where an avid user was offering his filters for free. I downloaded those and installed them and have never look back. The amount of spam that was identified started to steadily increase until the 72% level that it is at today. This means that on average, 3 of every 10 eamils I receive are legitimate and are allowed through by Mailwasher. The rest are deleted at the source and I don’t have to spend time downloading them. This is a big deal if you are using dialup access to the Internet.

There are many controls within the software. You can specify emails be deleted automatically without your knowledge or you could have the program mark them for deletion but let you glance at them just in case. This is useful initially until you get a good feel for it. There are many other options that fall in between these. The good thing is that they are all on one screen.

There is a concept of a blacklist and a whitelist. You can import all of your address book from Outlook with a couple of clicks and from other email programs as well. These go into what is called a whitelist. Mailwasher will allow all emails through that are on the whitelist. It will mark or automatically delete all those that are on the blacklist. Adding or removing someone from either list is a very simple point and click exercise.

Mailwasher also allows the setting up of legitimate filters. These are methods of specifying an email as legitimate. For example, if you identify all emails coming from your company domain name as being legitimate, then all messages from your coworkers will be allowed through without you having to specify each person. This is achieved using a wildcard setting such as "*@youworkdomain.com". This can also be used to blacklist an entire domain such that all messages are immediately marked for deletion or automatically deleted depending on your settings.

MailWasher is an independent program and does not interfere with your email software. It sits in the system tray and does its work diligently. In my case, it checks my inbox every 10 minutes and does a cleanout. I have my email software setup to only retrieve messages when I instruct it to so that MailWasher has the most opportunity to do it’s work.

Mailwasher also has more advanced controls, one of them being something known as "Origin of Spam". There are servers on the internet which list known spam addresses. When you receive a message from one of these addresses, it is automatically marked as spam and deleted without your filters even being invoked. This is a remarkable system and comes free with MailWasher. A whopping 14% of emails that I get are identified in this manner and automatically deleted.

MailWasher is an indispensable tool in my email arsenal. If spam is a problem for you, it could do likewise for you. Download your free trial today and use it for 30 days. If you like it, you only pay $37 which in my book is a small price to pay for so much time saved everyday.

Balraj Dhaliwal is an Internet Consultant for BSD Register, a well respected and liked domain and hosting provider because of its no nonsense simple approach to getting things done. Visit BSD Register at http://www.BSDRegister.com

So you think all of your subscribers are receiving your ezine? Better think again. With the rise of Spam filtering software, both by ISP’s and end users, odds are your ezine may be getting deleted before it’s even delivered to your subscribers.

There are two main types of filters: those installed on the end user’s computer and server side programs used by Internet Service Providers. The most popular program used is http://SpamAssassin.org

So what does this mean to you as a publisher? If you want to make sure your ezine is being read you’ll want to pay close attention to the tips given here. After all, do you spend your time writing a good ezine just to have it sent to the trash? I didn’t think so.

Spam filters work by counting the words in your ezine that fall on their "target lists," each of which has been assigned a numeric value. After they’re done "scanning" your email, they add up your score. If your total value is above a set number, it is determined to be "spam" and sent to the trash bin. Gone forever, and your subscribers are none the wiser. Filters search the message, the header, the subject line and looks at the formatting as well. To see what Spam Assassin looks at go to…. http://www.spamassassin.org/tests.html

I personally use filtering software due to the hundreds of unsolicited messages I receive daily. But I always go through the "trash bin" first and glance through it before hitting the delete key to make sure it hasn’t captured something I want or need. The problem is that most users of filtering software either don’t want to spend the time, or don’t know how to check it to see what was "killed." So many of them may be missing your ezine, even though they have subscribed to receive it.

Now do you see how tough it is just getting your ezine into the hands of your subscribers? The trick is to be "smarter" then the filters and utilize some of the great free tools that have sprung up to help publishers with this exact problem.

Before sending out your next issue, run it through one of these free checkers to see if it will make it past the filters and find out what your ezines total score is along with tips on how to improve.

1) SiteSell Spam Check http://spamcheck.sitesell.com

Go to the above url or submit your ezine to mailto:spamcheck@sitesell.net with the word TEST in all caps before your ezine name in the subject line.

Example: TEST Merle’s Mission Ezine

2) Lyris Content Checker http://www.lyris.com/contentchecker/

Runs your ezine through a battery of tests used by "Spam Assassin." Paste your ezine into the web based form, hit submit and the results will be emailed to you.

3) AssuranceSys.com- If you don’t mind parting with some of your cash, Assurance Systems will run a variety of tests for you and let you know how your ezine stacks up against the filters and if you’ve been blacklisted. Check them out at http://AssuranceSys.com

So what’s considered "bad" to filtering software and what can you do to reduce your score? I thought you’d never ask. Here are some tips to help:

1) Be careful with your subject line- Avoid the word free or using all caps or excessive punctuation.

2) Using a lot of fancy HTML formatting can hurt you. Many filters will kill HTML emails as a given mistaking them for viruses.

3) A larger size can actually help you. Anywhere from 20k to 40K is good and will actually subtract bad points from your total score.

4) Blocking: Make sure your IP address is not being blacklisted. This can happen if your site is hosted on an open relay or you’re sharing an IP address with someone who is a known spammer. You don’t want to get yourself blacklisted so be careful here.

5) Avoid the use of the words free, click here, remove, spam, and any others known to be on the list. This is pretty hard. Some publishers have resorted to putting * or ^ in exchange for letters. For example fr^e or Sp*m- It’s highly debatable if this will work or not since most filters will be catching on to this technique soon if they haven’t already.

6) Set up free accounts at Yahoo and Hotmail and subscribe to your own ezine and monitor the boxes to see if your ezine is making it through their filters.

For further tips I recommend the following resources:

"Avoid the Spam Filter Trap" http://assurance.sys.com/f/avoid-spam-filter-trap.pdf

"List of Filtering Trigger Words" http://www.iprofitsystems.com/articles/spamfilters.html

"20 Ways Opt in Emailers can Outsmart Spam Filters" http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt8/spamfilter-avoidance.htm

Nice list of trigger words here: http://www.sv-cs.spam.html

As you can see, publishing an ezine and getting it to your subscribers is no longer an easy task. One practice that has been adopted by some publishers is to send a follow-up email after your ezine has gone out, stating that it has been sent, including a url where your subscribers can go to read the issue online. I do this and every week that link registers 50 to 100 clicks, so obviously a lot of people aren’t getting it the first time.

There’s also a new service called Habeas.com which is a whitelisting tool. For a large sum of cash they’ll give you a line of code to add to your email headers which guarantees your message will pass through the filters. They have special relationships with ISP’s and mail filters that recognize the header labeling you a "good guy." It’s not inexpensive. Visit their site for more info on how it works at http://habeas.com

There’s no way to beat filtering, but by being informed and knowing what you’re up against and how to improve, you’ll stand a much better chance of getting your ezine where it needs to be. And that’s why you started publishing in the 1st place, isn’t it?

Merle has been "working" the Net for over 8 years and has a Special Gift just for you. Download my FREE E-book "50 Easy Ways to Promote Your Website". Get your copy now at http://www.WebSiteTrafficPlan.com

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included.

Unfortunately a spam filter has become a necessity for any computer that has email and accesses the internet. Spam, as it has been termed, is unsolicited email which is usually a part of mass commercial advertising campaigns. Essentially, it is junk email. In the offline world junk mail has been sent unsolicited for years. In the online world; however, it presents more trouble than a mailbox loaded with advertisements.

Without a spam filter, your email box will be literally loaded with junk mail if your email address has been in existence for very long. It seems to be something that just happens although giving your email address out, especially posting it on websites, seems to open the virtual door for a flood of junk mail. Even if you don’t give your email address out over the internet, you will likely receive spam at some time.

The reason that spam is such a problem is, the junk mail eats up electronic resources like memory and storage space. Also, it is not uncommon for spam to contain computer viruses that can effectively shut down a computer system, or bogus offers and scams that many people fall for. A spam filter aims to stop these junk messages before they come into an email inbox.

Even if the spam you are receiving is nothing more than advertisements, it can be time consuming to check your email and delete all of the irrelevant junk that you receive. Thus, having a spam filter can save you loads of time. Without having to sift through junk email to find the email messages that require your attention, you will be much more productive.

Since the dawn of the internet people have been fighting spam. Recognizing that it is truly a problem, laws have been passed in an attempt to curb it; however, those laws are often ignored and spammers send their unsolicited messages anyway. Thus, even with legislation in place a spam filter is still a necessary time saving tool that can also protect your electronic data from damage and loss.

The anti-spam act in the United States is referred to as the Can- Spam Act of 2003. The law doesn’t attempt to curb unsolicited email altogether, but rather aims to prevent deceptive practices so a spam filter is still needed even if the spam you receive doesn’t break the law. The act bans the use of misleading or deceptive header information and subject lines, requires that recipients of the email be given an option to opt-out of receiving the email, and requires that marketers include a notice that email is a solicitation or advertisement. It also requires that the sender provide a postal address.

If you engage in email marketing yourself, you need to be sure that the addresses you send email to are legitimate opt-in email addresses and not a harvested list. Otherwise, you may become blacklisted and have your information added to spam filters as a common spammer. Also, it is good to avoid the use of words that are commonly picked up by a spam filter and to inform subscribers and opt-in email recipients to add your email address to the safe list in their spam filter so your messages won’t get redirected or deleted.

A spam filter can be installed on individual computers, network servers or email servers. The purpose of a spam filter is to filter out the junk. A basic spam filter does a pretty good job of that, but none of them are all-encompassing or fail proof.

A spam filter intercepts messages that appear to be spam based on the spam filter’s configuration. This may include email from servers that are blacklisted, meaning they have been identified as senders of spam, certain email addresses or other terms set by the user. For instance, many spam messages contain the word "free", or other specific words that are easily identifiable. A spam filter can generally be set to intercept emails containing the specified words as well.

Depending upon how you configure your spam filter and the spam filter you choose, spam filters handle email accordingly. Some may deliver a message to the inbox while others will redirect the message and send it to another place, like a junk mail box. Some delete the message altogether or screen out parts of a message that may be offensive or viral.

A spam filter that redirects messages is sometimes a good idea because you can scan through the messages and make sure they actually are spam before they are deleted. However, this in itself can be a time consuming task and many choose to have the suspected spam automatically deleted.

With most spam filters, you can choose email addresses that are "safe" which will prevent the spam filter from destroying or redirecting a message from a certain email address or server. If you subscribe to newsletters from companies that may send out bulk email, it is a good idea to add the sender to your safe list so the information you requested will be ignored by your spam filter and delivered to your inbox.

Copyright Christopher J. Enders. Are you at the end of your rope, fed up and confused by all the scrambled internet marketing advice you’re getting? Whether you are new to internet marketing, or a website owner who wants to make more money from your website, learn the proven strategies that will sky-rocket your internet business at http://BiznessTips.com

If you talk to anyone who uses email, spam is something that is frequently on there mind. How often is it that you open your inbox checking for an email from your mom, and you end up with emails with subjective titles involving animals, and foreign objects.

There are ways to fight back against Spam, and one of the most popular is through the use of a spam filtering service. There is all different types of spam, and surprisingly not all of them involve email. Most spamming involves the advertising or otherwise promotion of a product, however this is not true in some cases.

Most common types of spamming include: Email spam, Link spam and search engine spam.

Email Spam is the simple act of sending out massive amounts of ‘junk email’ to anyone and everyone, in order to promote a product. Often times spamming has been exploited by more ‘undergorund’ industries such as the adult industry, but it would be unfair to say that other industries haven’t used it as well.

Link Spam is a form of spamming or spamdexing that recently became publicized most often when targeting the increasingly popular weblogs. Weblogs is one of the biggest problems, however link spam also affects guestbooks, and online discussion boards. The purpose behind spamming these various places, is to display hyperlinks to a various page or product, which helps both with user exposure and search engine popularity.

Search engine spam is usually closely related with the above "link spam", as it is the process of creating countless numbers of pages, that populate search engines. Often times these pages will be full of garbage text and have no real value on there own. When a user visits them, they will either be re-directed to a completely different page, often times on another domain, or show prominent advertising.

Everyone can take their part in removing spam. The easiest way for a general user to not encourage spam, is not to use it. Spammers only spam, because it must be effective, otherwise they would find something better to do with their time. It is also recommended to get various levels of personal spam protection, which is often times included with anti-virus software. 3rd party solutions such as Hotmail, have very good spam detection, however often times spam will leak in, and in that case you can help hotmail out by notifying them of the occurence, so that they can better help protect you next time.

Feel free to reprint this article as long as you keep the article, this caption and author biography in tact with all hyperlinks.

Ryan Fyfe is the owner and operator of Spam Filtering Services - http://www.spam-filtering-services.com, which is the best site on the internet for all Spam related information.

A server spam filter is a software application that scans incoming email messages, identifies SPAM based on preset configurations and isolates the unsolicited email so that it never reaches the email inboxes of the personal computers in the computer network.

SPAM is the slang term that is commonly used to describe unwanted, unsolicited commercial email or junk email. It is not an acronym so it doesn’t actually "stand for" anything.

SPAM email generally consists of commercial email that is delivered to recipients who did not request information from the company or individual who sends it.

Receiving loads of unsolicited commercial email can put a drain on businesses and individuals because they have to sort through email, eliminating the unwanted email messages, which is sometimes a time consuming process that can seriously inhibit productivity as well as being incredibly frustrating.

Time is money and wasting time to manually delete SPAM messages is not a wise thing to do.

Additionally, sometimes SPAM email contains viruses which can result in downtime for computer users as well as being a threat to the stability of a personal computer or computer network and the data stored within.

Scam artists also send unsolicited email as a part of phishing schemes which are intended to collect personal information for identity theft purposes, and other similar fraudulent reasons.

With a server spam filter, you can automate the process of eliminating spam at the receiving source - the server level - before it ever reaches the personal computers in your network.

This is a recommended task to automate because it saves personal computer users loads of time as well as protecting the personal computers and the network from damage which can result in downtime and lost data.

If the SPAM messages are not delivered to individuals in an organization, then the fear of someone falling for a scam and compromising financial or other confidential data is eliminated.

Because anti-spam technology is not perfect, it is a good idea to have a network administrator check the mail messages that are filtered out periodically to make sure that the server spam filter is not catching messages that are not actually SPAM.

When this happens, the email capture is sometimes referred to as a "false positive", meaning that the server spam filter positively identified a message as SPAM when it was actually a valid message that should not have been filtered out.

Some anti-spam programs have an option where identified SPAM can be sent to a computer user’s junk email box so the computer user can actually go through the filtered out messages at their leisure to make sure that bona fide messages have not been falsely identified as SPAM.

If this process is used and false positives are identified, the computer user needs to notify the network administrator so the configurations in the spam filter can be adjusted to allow receipt of email from the specific sender through the server.

Undoubtedly, it is a good idea to install a server spam filter in order to save your company time, money and heart-ache that can be associated with system failure.

When reviewing your options, do realize that all anti-spam products are not created equal. There are varying features regarding the way that SPAM is identified and the way the system is administered.

Some filter out email messages based on keywords used in the messages, some are pre-programmed with blacklisting of known spammers, and most all have configurations that can be customized by an end-user or network administrator.

It is a good idea to review several alternative products in detail and to determine which products best meet the needs of your company.

Searching the internet for spam filter reviews is a good way to learn more about individual software packages, their features and their functionality.

Copyright Christopher J. Enders. Are you at the end of your rope, fed up and confused by all the scrambled internet marketing advice you’re getting? Whether you are new to internet marketing, or a website owner who wants to make more money from your website, learn the proven strategies that will sky-rocket your internet business at http://BiznessTips.com.

It seems more and more these days, I am seeing increased similarities with spam and the flu. With Yahoo and AOL in the news lately about a possible pay to email to avoid spam, this brought be to think about the flu and spam correlation.

If you cannot beat it, or at least stop it completely at this time, why not try to make money off of it (that is unless there’s a permanent solution against it). Right now you could easily relate this statement to spam or the common cold/flu.

We can easily relate spam emails to the virus that will cause you to get sick. With some of the top email providers, you have the option of upgrading your email (pay of course) and have the option of increasing the number of filters to help combat the war against spam. With the flu/cold, we try our best to avoid it, purchase products to help prevent it, and once we do get it, off to the store to get the good ole cold/flu medicine.

With Yahoo and AOL, which I am sure you have probably heard of by now, a possible (most likely) option of paying to avoid the spam filters so your email will get to its intended place. Maybe it is time to start phoning people again?

It will be interesting to see how paying to avoid the spam filters will work out for some of the major players such as Yahoo and AOL. I just hope if the pay to email does come through, I just don’t see an increase in spam emails, but I guess as time goes on, that is very unlikely.

Gerard Manning is an SEO Consultant for Search Engine Marketing Firm Manning Search Marketing based out of Atlantic Canada.

In the past few years we have seen new legislation against SPAM, fax marketing and telemarketing. The franchisor must ensure that the integrity of the franchise system, the image and the standing in the community, as well as the brand-name are protected. This is why these new forms of marketing must be prohibited and outlined as such in the confidential operations manual.

Indeed, in our franchise company by developed a few clauses to address these new issues so as to prevent our franchisees from inadvertently breaking the law and or causing a problem for our franchise team;

3.16.2

You may not use unsolicited telephone or out-going telemarketing sales campaigns in the operation of your franchised business.

3.16.3

Any more than fifty (50) electronic mailings of an unsolicited nature per week are prohibited unless approved by Franchisor.

3.16.4 Blast Fax

Any more than one hundred (100) faxes of an unsolicited nature per week are prohibited unless approved by Franchisor.

— — — — —

Although these may be new clauses in most franchise agreements, you should still ask your franchise attorney if it makes sense for your company to include such in your franchise agreements. Every franchisor should consider this can be thinking here to comply with law. Think on this in 2006.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/