There are several ways to do an email verification without the need to actually send an email to that address. Sending emails to inexistent addresses will cause a bounce and in time this might generate problems for you. Since servers can, and often enough do, blacklist addresses that generate a large number of hard bounces.
From a variety of options for email verification software to a step by step guide on how to do it yourself. Here we can give you many alternatives for approaching a situation where you need to verify an email address without endangering your reputation score with a server.
Do it yourself.
Almost anyone can hire a verification service, especially when it comes to large lists of addresses. But if you have a relatively low number and want to check them out by yourself, this could be a good option.
A side from money saving, this alternative let’s you remain in control of what you do and how you do it. Getting first hand results that you know you can rely on.
Ping an address to validate it.
Every time you send an email, the message goes to a SMTP server which in turn looks for the “Mail Exchange” (MX) records of the recipient’s domain. If you send a mail to test@gmail.com, the server will search for the MX records of the gmail.com domain. If they should exist then it determines if the user name exist within or not.
Based on this process we can establish a way to check if an address really does exist. And you can do this all by yourself. All you’re going to need is your computer and an internet connection.
Step 1.
Enable telnet or use PuTTy, if you’re using windows that is. For Mac users just open iTerm app.
Step 2.
In the command prompt type, the following: “nslookup -type=mx gamil.com”. This command will query the server for that particular domain. We have actually specified the type as MX. This will extract and list the MX records for that email domain. In case you need to do this for another domain, you can replace the “gmail.com” with the other domain.
You should see something like this.
Step 3.
As you can see. In this case, as in many, there are multiple MX records for a domain. Just pick one to proceed. Anyone will do for this example. Now we’re going to pretend to send an email to that server.
Go to the command prompt and type the following in the same order.
“telnet gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com 25” (Connect to the server).
“Helo” (just a friendly salute).
“mail from:labnol@labnol.org” (Identify yourself).
“rcpt to:test@gmail.com” (The recipients address).
The servers answer to the “rcpt” command will give us the information we need. If the address exists in the records you choose then you’ll get an “OK”. If that’s not the case then you will likely receive a 550 error.
Commonly this error says something like “The email account that you tried to reach does not exist.” Or “The email account that you tried to reach is disabled”.
If that’s the case then you can be sure that the email address doesn’t exist, at least not in the records or in the server.
Get help.
If this all seems like too much work, or you quite simply don’t have the time. Then you might be interested in getting a service to do this for you. An email verification service, one like EmailVerify for example.
What is an email verification software?
Basically, it’s a software that ensures that an email, or a list of them, are being sent to a valid lists of email addresses. Is very common to see lists of emails in marketing campaigns and publicity teams. Many of those campaigns and teams rely on the use of a verification software for their listings.
They can recognize accurate addresses and domain structure; some can even check a mailbox against internet service providers to see if it’s valid. Much like we’ve just learnt to do. After that the users can download the results of the verification and count on having a clean email list.
They basically do the following.
Get the list of email addresses from the user.
Scan each one of them looking for bad addresses.
Enable the download of the clean list of addresses.
Where to start?
With so many options today we though it would be best to curate a small list of the best tools to help you verify an email address.
ZeroBounce.
ZeroBounce is one of the leading systems in email validation. It handles high volume lists and can help a campaign or company reach a high deliverability rate. Not only looks for bad addresses, it also removes them, validates the IP addresses and verifies the recipient’s demographics.
Having a free trial available the regular plan of service starts at 40$ per month and it comes with 18 validation tools.
NeverBounce.
With over 100.000 users worldwide NeverBounce is a nice tool for verification and list cleaning. It’s supposed to dramatically increase the deliverability of the user’s emails. It checks and validates addresses based on their database of around 6 Billion emails.
Also with a free trial, they have a policy of pays as you go, having the minimum price range of 80$ per 10.000 emails.
Bounceless.
Focused more in marketing aid for email campaigns, this is a great tool to check the validity of an email list. It supports lists in csv, txt or xls format and you download the results in the same format. Their services are pretty standard for an email verification service.
They do count with a free trial and their pricing range starts at 20$ per 2.500 email verifications.
VoilaNorbert.
Providing a bit of a twist here we can find a lead generation software. This is a great tool for email verification and does the same things we did earlier in the example. The downside is that it only handles corporate addresses. So is more recommended for industrial marketing campaigns.
Being at the lead of the market also comes with a price. This site offers 1.000 leads per month for 49$, and is the cheapest plan they offer.
Bouncer.
This is a website that focuses in protecting your score reputation a bit more than the other sites. Using it will net you a clean list and high deliverability rates. The problem with this site is that is usually too strict, it doesn’t even allow a single bad address in the list. It handles a 3 step process and is very reliable when it comes to securing a clean list.
They offer the first 1000 verifications for free, and after that the price for the first 49.000 verifications will be of 2$ each 1.000 verifications.
Low on budget?
Our recommendation for the cheapest yet most reliable service out of the ones above would be. Bouncer. Here you can take a look of their entire price plan.
For all the offer and bulk of data they can verify at a low price this is one of the cheapest options. However, is not necessarily the best suited for your needs.
Many sites offer wonders, almost all the time they’re just overselling their capabilities. You might wonder, how do I know which ones are really reliable? Which can actually deliver what they promise?
Don’t worry if this is one of your concerns, we have but one site for you.
Our recommendation?
Simple, EmailVerify. This simple yet highly reliable website will help you validate an email address or a long list of them. They have an excellent and very competitive pricing range. Not to mention they are very good at what they do.
If you need a service to help you with increasing the deliverability of your marketing campaign. EmailVerify is a site that will surely cover you needs and expectations. One of the very best and at a low price for their services. Be sure to check them out.