diff --git a/crawl4ai/content_filter_strategy.py b/crawl4ai/content_filter_strategy.py
index 0909be33d..5e954c31b 100644
--- a/crawl4ai/content_filter_strategy.py
+++ b/crawl4ai/content_filter_strategy.py
@@ -739,7 +739,7 @@ def _compute_composite_score(self, metrics, text_len, tag_len, link_text_len):
         if self.min_word_threshold:
             # Get raw text from metrics node - avoid extra processing
             text = metrics["node"].get_text(strip=True)
-            word_count = text.count(" ") + 1
+            word_count = len(text.split())
             if word_count < self.min_word_threshold:
                 return -1.0  # Guaranteed removal
         score = 0.0