Email Validation & VerificationUnlocking the Mystery

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Email Validation: Unlocking the Mystery

While many businesses offer email validation services, it’s important to know the strengths and weaknesses associated with them. Email validation has proven its ability to fix typos and verify domain names, resulting in a clean list. However, a verified domain name doesn’t guarantee the address “owner” is the correct person. Here’s how a clean list can miss the mark.

Existence Vs. Permission

Just this past April, the Spamhaus Project revealed their thoughts on email validation services, issuing an enlightening concept--just because it works, doesn’t mean it’s right. They started with the objective of email validation--to determine whether an email address exists, thus avoiding undeliverable messages. Then they looked beyond the surface, finding that just because email validation services can determine whether or not an email address exists, doesn’t mean it’s open for business.

Spamhaus dissected a weakness of email validation in regards to the naming convention, explaining, “It does nothing to verify the permission of the recipient to accept a subscription, which is the most important step in avoiding spam when acquiring addresses for bulk emailing lists, nor does it ensure that the email address owner is the same as the person making the transaction. That means that transactional mail like receipts, tickets or vouchers could be sent to the wrong person, yet the address won’t bounce because it was verified to exist.”

“It does nothing to verify the permission of the recipient to accept a subscription, which is the most important step in

avoiding spam”

When It Misses the Mark

Catch-All Domains: No Rejection

Another way in which email validation can fall short is by casting its net too wide. With catch-all domains, also known as accept-all, no matter what someone enters in front of the @ sign (sales@, info@, or jane@), the message will still be delivered without having to configure your server or do anything special. Catch-all servers are a great way to ensure that no messages are lost, for example, if an employee has left or was let go, they are likely still receiving important messages. Catch-all domains are useful for the recipient, but a pain for the sender since catch-all domains will accept anything and you never know if your message actually was delivered to the intended recipient.

Originally, part of the allure of catch-all domains was that no email domain would be rejected. While useful for those worried about missing important messages due to typos, spammers seized the opportunity. Instead of hunting for user names, spammers could input anything to reach their destination. The result? Catch-all boxes got flooded with spam and weren’t usable.

Email Validation: Unlocking the Mystery

Mad.Hatter@Synthio.com

Delivery Success!

HAHAHAH!

Protecting Your Account

When using an email validation service, it’s important that it uses the appropriate filters and identifies catch-all domains, informing you of how your content is being handled.

A good email validation process will determine the status of each email address. For example: The mail server for this domain accepts the address, but it also implements a catch-all policy. For this reason, it is not possible to determine if a mail account with this name actually exists, without sending a message and waiting for a reply. When looking for an email validation vendor, it’s important to ensure that they can both validate the naming convention of the email but that they can couple that with a more in-depth process to determine the kind of server the recipient has and what the risk assessment is.

What is Email Verification Anyhow?

Any business that practices email marketing sooner or later finds its email list needs a tune-up. Whether to prevent fraudulent sign-ups, decrease bounces, or simply remove old email addresses, an email verification service is often in order.

But what exactly is email verification and why is it important? We’ll explain what it is, review three commonly used email verification practices, and explain the pros and cons of each.

Email Validation & Verification

Source: Thompson, Chris. On The Dubious Merits of Email Verification Services. Spamhaus, 30 April. 2015. Web Access. 3. Sept. 2015

TOP 3 Email Verification Practices

Maintaining a clean email database is essential when it comes to running a successful campaign and often utilizes an email verification service. Email verification identifies and removes invalid domain names, typographical errors, and bad email addresses, improving your email list’s accuracy and validity.

1. Syntax Verification

The most basic way to verify an email address is to see if the address is valid. That is, if it is syntactically correct. Internet mail protocol standards dictate precisely what the format of each sender address can be, rejecting messages sent that do not meet these standards. Typically, when users receive a “syntactically invalid” error it’s due to a syntax error in the sender’s email address (such as omitting the @ symbol).

Another invalid format is jane@example. The domain is missing its extension (.com, .org, etc.) While it’s possible such an address could be valid for sending email over a local network, it can’t be used to send email over the internet.

The benefit of checking the syntax is that you can determine whether or not a string of characters meet the requirements of a valid email address. The con? It tells us nothing about whether or not the email address actually exists.

TO: Ahsley@example.com !

Did you mean: Ashley@example.com?

Email Verification: Unlocking the Mystery

Email Validation: Unlocking the Mystery

2. SMTP Verification

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the internet standard for email transmission, what we all use to send email back and forth. By checking with a potential recipient’s email server via SMTP, we can often see whether a user for a given email address actually exists:

The benefit of SMTP verification is that it checks syntax and determines if the recipient’s domain exists, if there’s a mail server associated with the domain. Kickbox blogger, Dan Stevens, finds SMTP is by far the best practice for email verification. “It is arguably the most accurate way of determining if an email address is both syntactically correct, and associated with a real user,” explains Stevens, “all without actually sending a message to the recipient.”

While SMTP verification goes beyond Syntax verification, it is not without limitations. Namely, it’s not possible to always determine if an email exists or not. Stevens explains, “Some mail servers, for instance, will always accept a message regardless of the recipient. These domains are know as Accept-All Domains and they behave in this manner specifically to mask what users actually exist at that domain.”

When selecting an email verification or email validation provider, be sure that the emails come back with a two or three fold analysis. For example, if the naming convention is correct, you then need to know if it is a catch-all server, and finally you need to know if there is any risk associated with the email address; knowing that it is an accept-all server does not mean your message will make it to the intended recipient. Choose an email verification provider that can match on more than just an email address so that you have the highest confidence rating possible before sending an email.

S M T P S e s s i o n

2015-09-15 14:52:11,675 [129] DEBUG SMTP *** END VALIDATION FOR fakeperson@fakeemail.com PROCESSED BY proxy-XXXXXXX12345

2015-09-15 14:52:11,675 [129] DEBUG SMTP 25 PROCESSES REMAIN ACTIVE

2015-09-15 14:52:11,675 [129] DEBUG SMTP *** STATUS Failed

2015-09-15 14:52:11,736 [51] DEBUG SMTP <--- 550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist.

3. Confirmation Email Verification

The last email verification practice is the most involved but it almost always guarantees whether or not a human being is linked to the email address in question.

Many of us have registered on a favorite shopping site and are soon asked to confirm the email address we used. Websites that utilize this practice are savvy in acquiring information. They’re able to both confirm that the email address used is valid and that you are in fact the person associated with it.

While confirmation email verification is almost a sure-fire approach, there are a few cons. Stevens explains, “For one, if you have an existing list of users, it’s perhaps not ideal to send them each an email asking them to confirm they exist. Second, sending email is expensive. Third, if your mailing list is low quality, you’ve effectively spent a lot of money only to get a lot of bounce backs, spam reports, and a nice ding to your mailing reputation.”

Email Validation: Unlocking the Mystery

Source: Stevens, Dan. What is Email Verification? Kickbox, 3 Sept. 2014. Web Access. 3 Sept. 2015.

E M A I L

INBOX (1,430)

DRAFTS

SENT

DELETED

NEW EMAIL To: Jane SmithSubject: Thanks for Subscribing!

Dear Jane,

Thanks for subscribing, now all you have to do is confirm your email by clicking below!

CONFIRM EMAIL

In conclusion, each email verification practice exhibits pros and cons unique to its approach. Which one is best for you relies on your goals, budget, and determining an acceptable margin of error. However, if you decide to go with an email verification provider, be sure that they can provide you with an in depth analysis of your emails and not just an ambiguous pass or fail.

About

We are a social sourced B2B data provider with the largest and most accurate global contact database that is always refreshing itself in real-time. From origination of new targeted leads to full service appends, we offer the most reliable data solution on the market. Search for new leads using our platform or for existing databases, we will identify inaccurate records and append them with 35+ fields of self-reported attributes like groups, skills, title, and even a validated email address, tested with our proprietary validation software.

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