Keyword checking

The configuration of anti spam identification based on keywords is done from the Anti Spam > Keyword Checking node. Right-click on this node to bring up the Keyword checking properties.

Anti Spam keyword checking properties

1. Enable 'Scan e-mail body'. Now you can enter keywords & conditions that identify spam. Select either 'Add Condition' to enter a condition, which uses operands, or select 'Add Keyword' to enter a single keyword or a phrase.

Adding a condition

Adding conditions

Conditions are combinations of keywords using the operands IF, AND, AND NOT, OR or OR NOT. Using conditions, you can specify combinations of words that must appear in the e-mail. For example a condition "If Word1 AND Word2" will check for Word1 and Word2. Both words would have to be present in the mail to activate the rule. To add a condition, select 'Add Condition'

Adding a keyword or phrase

Adding keywords

If you only wish to check for single words or phrases, you do not need to create a condition. In this case you can just add a keyword. Select 'Add Keyword' to do this. If you enter multiple words, then MailEssentials will search for that phrase. For example if you enter Basketball sports, then MailEssentials will check for the phrase 'Basketball sports'. Only this phrase would activate the rule, not only the word basketball OR sports.

Match whole words only: Enabling this option allows you to ensure that GFI MailEssentials will only block mails where the word you specify is a whole word. For example, if you specify the word `sport', an email with the word `sport' will be blocked, but not an email with the word `Allsports'.

Note: The default keyword list contains a number of African country names. This is because a lot of spam is regarding money scams from these countries. If you live in these countries or do business with them, you might want to remove those keywords from the default list.

Subject

2. To scan for words in the subject, enable 'Scan e-mail subject'. Now you can specify words that you wish to check for in the subject of the message. You can specify keywords and conditions.

Looking for keywords in the subject tab

Actions

After you have configured the keyword checking filter, you can configure what you wish to do with mail marked as Spam. Please see the actions paragraph for more information on the actions tab.