spam score

[Stoddard]

What is a spam score? Does every email get one according to how "spammy" it looks, or do email adresses get spam scores?

[jeremya]

Spam score is used by many email providers. It's basically a ranking number that is calculated based on various things about a given email. The higher the spam score, the more likely the email is spam. There are many factors that will increase a spam score including use of HTML, image to text ratio, hidden links, and even certain key phrases. Further, some advanced spam filters can even find words and phrases found within an image.

There are also factors based on where the email came from in terms of IP address, whether the email was sent over authenticated SMTP etc and you can even lower your score based on certain things.

It's important to note that even though you may create HTML emails or add images, it takes a combination of these factors to get a spam score high enough to be marked as spam which is why this kind of system can work so effectively.