Analyzing Words in Spam Emails

Updated , First Published by Pete Freitag

We recently did some analysis on our bayesian spam filter corpus (spam assassin token database), and came up with a list of words with a high spam/ham ratio.

By using the spam/ham ratio, and not the spam count, we came up with a better list of words to avoid. Most lists would have you avoid words like click and here, but they are used so much in legitimate email, that they have a lot spam/ham ratio.