How email verification services work ?

[Med Tr]

Hello my friends,

I'm still searching how email verification companies verify email lists from invalid
and spam trap email addresses.
Is it by sending a test emails and monitoring them or what?
And how they figure out spam trap email addresses ?
Thank you for replying

 

[Graybeard]

syrusakbary/validate_email
validate_email
This sent out the MX headers and got a response when I tried it a few years ago ...
see: validate_email.py in the distribution start at line 12

 

[Med Tr]

syrusakbary/validate_email
validate_email
This sent out the MX headers and got a response when I tried it a few years ago ...
see: validate_email.py in the distribution start at line 12

Thanks mate, but how email verification companies figure out and delete spam traps from an email list ?

 

[T J Tutor]

A spam trap is an email address that’s not actively used, but is actively monitored. If a spam trap receives an email, something is rotten in Denmark, because that email address never opted in to receive emails.

 

[Graybeard]

WTF is a spam trap -- or is that some colloquial terminology?
You can check the domain's DKIM for 'some' some validity
You can check RBL blackhole lists (SpamHaus etc)

 

[moris_preston]

Every company which deals with email marketing should validate its contact list from time to time. For this purpose, you can use special email validation services. Here’s what email validators help you do:

• Check the correctness of the email syntax: for example, you can find domain spelling errors, missing “@”, and delete such addresses.
• Find and replace duplicate emails.
• Detect spam traps and remove them. Spam traps look just like normal email addresses, but if you send an email to such an address, email services will consider email marketing campaigns from your domain as spam.
• Reveal contacts with a big number of spam complaints from them.
• Detect disposable email addresses, i.e., email aliases for users’ real addresses. Nobody reads any emails in such mailboxes.
• Find role-based addresses, i.e. addresses associated with a certain company or position, not a person. Such addresses have high unsubscribe and complaint rates.
• Check mail eXchanger (MX) records in the addresses' domains. A domain without MX can't receive emails.
• Check for an SMTP connection with the recipients' servers that shows if their accounts really exist.
• Detect contact activity/inactivity — whether the subscriber is currently using the given mailbox.

This is an incomplete list, but nevertheless, it demonstrates well how many dangers there are in an unvalidated contact list. Especially if you’ve collected contacts offline — through questionnaires, surveys or flyers. Or if there was no Double Opt In enabled.

 

[T J Tutor]

can't see how it would get on a list though

Most of the time it's from scrapers. Then, the scraped lists get shared, sold, etc.

 

[martinsmith]

Email verification is a service that identifies possible spam traps and other email address discrepancies before they're flagged by Email Service Providers (ESPs) and cause permanent damage to your reputation.

 

[Graybeard]

A spam trap is an email address that’s not actively used, but is actively monitored. If a spam trap receives an email, something is rotten in Denmark, because that email address never opted in to receive emails.

Didn't see this
spam honey-pot
can't see how it would get on a list though --because it is never opted-in to receive email
info@example.com or other 'commonly used address'?

 

[Graybeard]

so mailto:secretagent@urbusted.com
and check that inbox