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Is the word "free" safe to use again?

by Michael Lee
9 replies
Hi guys,

I'm getting 0 spam ratings from aweber despite using free a couple of times in my email. Does that mean I could use "free" without having to insert anything odd in it (like f'ree or f.ree)?

Thanks,
Michael
#free #safe #word
  • Profile picture of the author artwebster
    Aweber might accept it but many email filters won't.

    The word 'free' is almost guaranteed to get emails blocked by many email filters, as are 'offer', 'paid' and 'money'.

    It's a bit stupid really because even non-spam emails get blocked unless the sender is white-listed. I think spam filters have become too aggressive.
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    • Profile picture of the author ken_p
      Originally Posted by artwebster View Post


      It's a bit stupid really because even non-spam emails get blocked unless the sender is white-listed. I think spam filters have become too aggressive.

      Because I think, spammers now a days have become very aggressive too.
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  • Profile picture of the author Joel O
    I'm not an expert when it comes to this sort of thing, but I have stopped using hidden ways of saying it.

    I think spam blockers realize that spammers use "fr'ee" and all those other ways of writing it, so they just block those words as well.

    I have sort of given up on it and just write like normal now. I don't mention the word a lot, but I don't add any characters to it.


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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Hersh
      Originally Posted by Joel O View Post

      I'm not an expert when it comes to this sort of thing, but I have stopped using hidden ways of saying it.

      I think spam blockers realize that spammers use "fr'ee" and all those other ways of writing it, so they just block those words as well.

      I have sort of given up on it and just write like normal now. I don't mention the word a lot, but I don't add any characters to it.


      Joel
      Totally agree with you Joel. I've been using all kind of things to hide the free word in my follow up's and non of them passed. The weird thing is that I have two computers with the same Outlook 2003 installed from the same disk. One computer filtered my message while the other got it to the inbox. Interesting.
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      • Profile picture of the author JustinPremick
        Hi Michael and everyone else,

        I think it might help to look at this from an ISP perspective.

        Yahoo services a quarter of a billion users.
        So does Microsoft.
        Google will in the near future.

        (Source: email-marketing-reports.com)

        Approximate combined market capitalization of these companies
        as of June 4, 2009: $354.59 billion.

        You don't seriously think with all that money and all those users
        at stake, their email filtering is as simple as "free" or "paid" or
        "money"... do you?

        For example, what about the following email content?

        Hi John,

        I paid Tim the money for our tickets to the baseball game.

        He said he can get us free parking. How COOL is that?
        That email uses "free," "paid" and "money" - and even includes
        a word in ALL CAPS. Even so, not likely to get filtered.

        Yes, content still matters in some industries that are often
        associated with spam (think how hard it must be to run the
        actual, official Viagra email list).

        But for most of us, it doesn't matter the way it did 5 years ago.

        Keep your content reasonable and focus on sending email people
        want. Email people want = fewer complaints = better delivery.

        I could cite you a bunch of ISP comments of this but the point
        is that common sense counts for a lot in spam filtering.

        Originally Posted by Michael Lee View Post

        Does that mean I could use "free" without having to insert anything odd in it (like f'ree or f.ree)?
        Yes.

        In fact, if you do say "free" in the email, you absolutely
        should not try to "fool" a spam filter with weird spacing or
        punctuation. You'd be trying to fool people who have
        $350 billion to throw at catching you.

        Which of these do and don't look spammy to you?

        * Free
        * free
        * f'ree
        * f.r.e.e.
        * fr33
        * OMGIT'SFREEGETITNOW!

        The ones that do and don't look spammy to you are the
        same ones that do and don't look spammy to ISPs.

        Just write to people normally.

        Focus on keeping your complaint rate down; that
        matters more than content.

        Hope this helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author shakti2u
    I have just been using regular words, including free and have not had any problems. But I only use the word free in conjunction with something I am giving away - do you think that is the difference?

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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Riley
      I use the word "free" in many of my e-mails, and response shows they are going through. I just don't overuse it. Make it a small fraction of a percentage of the overall content.

      Never, ever do I use "f.ree" or any other spammy-looking words.
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  • Profile picture of the author SullyUI
    I was wondering about this too because I got an e-mail from a person with the word free used several times and it was not caught by my spam filter.
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    • Profile picture of the author Adrian Jock
      Originally Posted by Sully Chaudry View Post

      I was wondering about this too because I got an e-mail from a person with the word free used several times and it was not caught by my spam filter.
      Of course it was not caught by your spam filter. No major spam filter software penalizes the word "free" but some combinations of words that contain the word free (Note the difference! ) and some spam-looking ways of writing the word free such as F R E E (spaced free).

      Free being penalized by spam filters is just another internet marketing myth.

      If you need more information on this topic, you can read spam filters documentations that can be found online. For example: SpamAssassin: Tests Performed
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