Pink PostDo spam words still matter?
Modern filters at Gmail and Outlook rely mostly on sender reputation, authentication and how recipients react. One word will not send a good email to spam. But trigger phrases still feed into content scoring in filters such as SpamAssassin, which many hosts and corporate gateways run, and they make a pitch read like an ad to the human who opens it. For outreach, the human reader is the harder filter.
The five categories we check
| Category | Example phrases |
|---|---|
| Urgency | act now, limited time, last chance, urgent |
| Money | 100% free, earn money, best price, cash |
| Too good to be true | guaranteed, no strings attached, winner, miracle |
| Shady | click here, this is not spam, verify your account |
| Pushy / salesy | buy now, exclusive deal, cheap backlinks, guaranteed rankings |
Beyond words: what else gets flagged
- ALL CAPS and strings of !!! look like promotions.
- Many links: a first pitch with more than one or two links reads like marketing. Link to the page you are talking about, nothing else.
- Images and attachments in a cold email raise suspicion. Send them once the editor replies.
- Link shorteners are widely abused by spammers; use full URLs.
- Open-tracking pixels add a hidden image to every email. Pink Post leaves open and click tracking off by default for that reason.
Link building phrases to avoid
Some phrases are specific to SEO outreach and land badly: "dofollow links for sale", "cheap backlinks", "guaranteed rankings", "page 1 of Google". Editors see them every day. Describe what is in it for their readers instead: the piece you wrote, the broken link you found, the data you can share.