What is email verification and how to check if an email is valid
Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2024 9:23 am
Email verification is the process of verifying that an email address exists and is active, also known as valid. A valid email is one that can receive messages from other senders. Every email verifier, whether bulk or one-off, performs (or at least is supposed to) several steps of the verification process. The most common ones are syntax, domain, catch-all, and MX record checks, as well as pinging the email address (you'll read about them in detail later in the article).
Email validation is the end result of the email verification process that is indonesia phone number data provided to the user. Depending on the result, an email gets one of the email verification statuses , usually “valid,” “invalid,” and “unverifiable” (often marked with green, yellow, and red colors). Sometimes validation also involves checking any additional information that comes with the lead’s email or verifying the source of that lead.
email verification
Why you shouldn't skip email verification
If you are in doubt, you need to verify the validity of your emails. Let me show you why email verification is important and why ignoring it when doing email marketing can lead to catastrophic campaign issues that will take weeks to resolve.
Reason 1 : Helps keep your email lists up to date
Every year, 22.5% of email addresses become invalid. That’s not your fault; this happens naturally due to a number of external reasons. Most of the time, it’s because people change companies and the corporate email addresses you have on your list become inactive. If you don’t check your email lists regularly, within a year, the 22.5% bounce rate will exceed the acceptable bounce rate by ten times, and your sender reputation will suffer greatly. Pro tip: Check your email list once every two months.
Reason 2 : Reduce hard bounces
A hard bounce is an email that returns to the sender because the recipient does not exist, i.e. the email address is invalid. High bounce rates are often indicative of spammers, so ESPs do not treat users with high bounce rates kindly. When your bounce rate grows, your sender reputation falls. Once you cross a critical threshold, your account is blacklisted.
soft bounces vs. hard bounces
Reason 3 : Improves email deliverability
When you use an email verifier to filter out invalid email addresses, you can be sure that the remaining ones can receive emails, which means that your messages reach the inbox. Subsequently, your email deliverability remains high. This helps save on sending emails and, once again, preserves your reputation as an email sender. Speaking of…
Reason 4 : Maintains a high sender reputation
Your sender reputation depends on a number of things. We've already mentioned bounce rate and deliverability, but there's also spam report rate and your sender habits (never forget to warm up new email accounts!). Consistently using email verification services in your marketing will help you maintain a high sender reputation and avoid blacklists. Don't know how to check your sender reputation? Find out here.
How to check if the email is valid?
There are many ways to check if an email is valid, although some are not as effective as others, and some may be convenient if you only have a few emails to check.
Method 1: Send a test email to the address
This tactic is the easiest, but we suggest you don't use it if you have a lot of emails to check. When you send an email to a fake or invalid email address, it will bounce back and you will receive a message stating that your letter was not delivered or that the address was not found.
But remember that frequent use of this method can increase your bounce rate, damage your sender reputation, add you to spam lists, and mess up your metrics. The solution is to use a dummy account and send a test email from it.
Method 2 : Search for the address on Google
Of course, this method won't show you if an email address is fake, but it might tell you if it's valid. These days, people list their email addresses everywhere on the Internet, whether on their website or on social media. If you only have a few email addresses to verify, this method may work for you, as it won't harm your domain's reputation.
Method 3 : Ping the server
You can ping the mail server and ask if the address is valid with the help of tools like PuTTY or Telnet. But beware, although this method is quite accurate, it is cumbersome and risky for your infrastructure.
Method 4: Use the email verifier
The best way to check if an email address is valid is by using email verification software that can help you validate email addresses with a couple of clicks. While all email verifiers are slightly different based on features and the number of email addresses you can validate per month, they are all very easy to use.
How does an email verifier work?
There are many technical nuances in how email verification tools work. The general idea is that each email tester performs verification according to the developers' algorithms. For example, our email verifier goes through 7 email verification steps to achieve maximum accuracy:
Syntax check
Check gibberish
Domain existence check
Checking MX records
Catch-all domain check
SMTP Authentication (Email Address Ping)
Free mail check
Below are the 5 most common email verification steps:
Syntax check
When you write a professional email, you most likely use an app like Grammarly to check your copy and make sure every word is spelled correctly and your punctuation is perfect.
An email verification service does the same thing.
Syntax checking algorithms look for the following:
Domain verification
A domain name comes right after the @ symbol and shows which domain the email address is linked to. For example, in [email protected], bombom.com is the domain name. Email verification services check whether the domain name is spelled correctly, as well as whether the website and domain are real and active.
This verification is important for one simple reason: websites expire, and so do the email addresses linked to them. Some companies leave the market while others migrate to a new domain and create new email addresses linked to the new domain.
Email validation is the end result of the email verification process that is indonesia phone number data provided to the user. Depending on the result, an email gets one of the email verification statuses , usually “valid,” “invalid,” and “unverifiable” (often marked with green, yellow, and red colors). Sometimes validation also involves checking any additional information that comes with the lead’s email or verifying the source of that lead.
email verification
Why you shouldn't skip email verification
If you are in doubt, you need to verify the validity of your emails. Let me show you why email verification is important and why ignoring it when doing email marketing can lead to catastrophic campaign issues that will take weeks to resolve.
Reason 1 : Helps keep your email lists up to date
Every year, 22.5% of email addresses become invalid. That’s not your fault; this happens naturally due to a number of external reasons. Most of the time, it’s because people change companies and the corporate email addresses you have on your list become inactive. If you don’t check your email lists regularly, within a year, the 22.5% bounce rate will exceed the acceptable bounce rate by ten times, and your sender reputation will suffer greatly. Pro tip: Check your email list once every two months.
Reason 2 : Reduce hard bounces
A hard bounce is an email that returns to the sender because the recipient does not exist, i.e. the email address is invalid. High bounce rates are often indicative of spammers, so ESPs do not treat users with high bounce rates kindly. When your bounce rate grows, your sender reputation falls. Once you cross a critical threshold, your account is blacklisted.
soft bounces vs. hard bounces
Reason 3 : Improves email deliverability
When you use an email verifier to filter out invalid email addresses, you can be sure that the remaining ones can receive emails, which means that your messages reach the inbox. Subsequently, your email deliverability remains high. This helps save on sending emails and, once again, preserves your reputation as an email sender. Speaking of…
Reason 4 : Maintains a high sender reputation
Your sender reputation depends on a number of things. We've already mentioned bounce rate and deliverability, but there's also spam report rate and your sender habits (never forget to warm up new email accounts!). Consistently using email verification services in your marketing will help you maintain a high sender reputation and avoid blacklists. Don't know how to check your sender reputation? Find out here.
How to check if the email is valid?
There are many ways to check if an email is valid, although some are not as effective as others, and some may be convenient if you only have a few emails to check.
Method 1: Send a test email to the address
This tactic is the easiest, but we suggest you don't use it if you have a lot of emails to check. When you send an email to a fake or invalid email address, it will bounce back and you will receive a message stating that your letter was not delivered or that the address was not found.
But remember that frequent use of this method can increase your bounce rate, damage your sender reputation, add you to spam lists, and mess up your metrics. The solution is to use a dummy account and send a test email from it.
Method 2 : Search for the address on Google
Of course, this method won't show you if an email address is fake, but it might tell you if it's valid. These days, people list their email addresses everywhere on the Internet, whether on their website or on social media. If you only have a few email addresses to verify, this method may work for you, as it won't harm your domain's reputation.
Method 3 : Ping the server
You can ping the mail server and ask if the address is valid with the help of tools like PuTTY or Telnet. But beware, although this method is quite accurate, it is cumbersome and risky for your infrastructure.
Method 4: Use the email verifier
The best way to check if an email address is valid is by using email verification software that can help you validate email addresses with a couple of clicks. While all email verifiers are slightly different based on features and the number of email addresses you can validate per month, they are all very easy to use.
How does an email verifier work?
There are many technical nuances in how email verification tools work. The general idea is that each email tester performs verification according to the developers' algorithms. For example, our email verifier goes through 7 email verification steps to achieve maximum accuracy:
Syntax check
Check gibberish
Domain existence check
Checking MX records
Catch-all domain check
SMTP Authentication (Email Address Ping)
Free mail check
Below are the 5 most common email verification steps:
Syntax check
When you write a professional email, you most likely use an app like Grammarly to check your copy and make sure every word is spelled correctly and your punctuation is perfect.
An email verification service does the same thing.
Syntax checking algorithms look for the following:
Domain verification
A domain name comes right after the @ symbol and shows which domain the email address is linked to. For example, in [email protected], bombom.com is the domain name. Email verification services check whether the domain name is spelled correctly, as well as whether the website and domain are real and active.
This verification is important for one simple reason: websites expire, and so do the email addresses linked to them. Some companies leave the market while others migrate to a new domain and create new email addresses linked to the new domain.