How can I check to see if email addresses are valid?

Catherine1

Active Member
I was reading about some email marketing things the other day and it said that it is a good idea to check your email addresses are valid that you are sending your emails to. I found some checkers online but they did not seem to work because I check a few of my family members and they said they were not valid but I know they are.

Is there a way to check to see if an email address is valid that is actually accurate?
 

eMonetize

Member
Are you using an ESP to mail with? If you are, they will remove any addresses that become bad.

You only really need to do if you let the addresses site for any significant length of time.

Also, you could have users that abandoned an account and the provider after a certain amount of time turns the address into a recycled spam trap.

To the best of my knowledge, the following is correct.

AOL: 90 days
Gmail / Hotmail: 270 days
Yahoo: 180 days + 60 extra days for each year the user had the account

So it is important to remove addresses that go bad before they get to the age listed above. Once an email becomes a trap it is harder to identify / remove.

There are services that will do it for you reliably.

A couple popular ones are...

briteverify.com
neverbounce.com
xverify.com

I don't use any of them because they are overpriced. But they are fine for small lists.
 

Catherine1

Active Member
Are you using an ESP to mail with? If you are, they will remove any addresses that become bad.

You only really need to do if you let the addresses site for any significant length of time.

Also, you could have users that abandoned an account and the provider after a certain amount of time turns the address into a recycled spam trap.

To the best of my knowledge, the following is correct.

AOL: 90 days
Gmail / Hotmail: 270 days
Yahoo: 180 days + 60 extra days for each year the user had the account

So it is important to remove addresses that go bad before they get to the age listed above. Once an email becomes a trap it is harder to identify / remove.

There are services that will do it for you reliably.

A couple popular ones are...

briteverify.com
neverbounce.com
xverify.com

I don't use any of them because they are overpriced. But they are fine for small lists.
Forgive me but what is an ESP?

Sorry but I am a newbie at email marketing so I don't know all the terms that are used yet.
 

eMonetize

Member
ESP = Email Service Provider

Companies that provide you with the ability to send bulk email (email marketing)

MailChimp, Aweber, Getresponse, etc... are all ESPs.
 

Catherine1

Active Member
ESP = Email Service Provider

Companies that provide you with the ability to send bulk email (email marketing)

MailChimp, Aweber, Getresponse, etc... are all ESPs.
Thanks for clarifying that. I just have not heard the term "ESP" before. I have always seen it spelled out but I am pretty new to email marketing so I don't know all the terms yet.
Did you collect them yourself through some kind of a signup form or did you get them somewhere else?
They were collected myself through my blog signup form.
I have tried neverbounce, it works fine for all of my checking. But it's quite expensive :(
Is that a website or a software you buy?
 

Kania

Active Member
If you use the double opt-in method for your subscribers then you will know that the emails are real and not fake.
 
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