diff --git a/index.js b/index.js
index e2c1059..5ee0f20 100644
--- a/index.js
+++ b/index.js
@@ -84,7 +84,8 @@
 	
 	TextStatistics.prototype.wordCount = function(text) {
 		text = text ? cleanText(text) : this.text;
-		return text.split(/[^a-z0-9]+/i).length || 1;
+		matches = text.match(/[\d\w]+/ig);
+    		return matches ? matches.length : 0;
 	};
 	
 	TextStatistics.prototype.averageWordsPerSentence = function(text) {