Did you know that checking if an email is valid can prevent you from losing up to 28% of your database every year? In addition, 3 out of 10 emails can be invalid, directly affecting the effectiveness of your campaigns.
When you send messages to the wrong addresses, your sender reputation deteriorates and your emails end up in spam. For this reason, validating email has become an essential practice for any business that wants to protect its investment.
Mailing lists naturally deteriorate: 30% of addresses change annually and 22.5% become invalid on their own. If your bounce rates exceed 2%, providers mark your domain as spam and block future submissions.
In this article, you’ll learn effective methods for verifying email, from professional tools with 98.9% reliability to manual verification techniques. We’ll show you step-by-step how to check if an email exists and is active, using syntax verification, DNS, MX records, and SMTP connection.
Remember that effective verification can reduce bounces by 98% and increase open rates by up to 20%. The investment in validating your emails is recovered from the first campaign.
What is email validation?
Email validation is the process of detecting and removing email addresses that are non-existent, invalid, or unable to receive messages. This procedure examines both the structure of an address and its actual ability to receive emails.
Validation vs verification: what’s the difference?
Although both terms sound similar, they refer to different processes that you should be aware of.
Validation looks only at the format and structure of the address. Check if the syntax is correct, if the @ symbol is present and correctly placed, and if it meets the established technical standards.
Email verification goes one step further. Confirm that the email actually exists and is active on the mail server. It uses the SMTP protocol to determine if the mailbox can receive messages without sending actual mail.
Remember that validation ensures that the email is spelled correctly, while verification confirms that it works.
The three essential components of a valid email
Every email address needs these three parts to function properly. If any are missing, your message won’t get through.
The username appears before the @ symbol and can include letters, numbers, periods, hyphens, and underscores. Keep in mind that the points cannot be at the beginning, at the end, or appear consecutively. Each username must be unique within your domain.
The @ symbol separates the user from the domain and directs the message to the correct server.
The domain appears after the @ and consists of the server name plus the top-level extension. It can contain letters, numbers, and hyphens, following DNS conventions. For example, in usuario@empresa.com, “empresa.com” is the entire domain.
Why do some emails look good but don’t work?
An email can be perfectly formatted and still not functional. Catch-all domains accept any mail, even if you type random text on the user’s side. Temporary addresses work only for minutes, hours, or days, then become bounces.
In addition, domains expire over time, invalidating all associated addresses. B2B email lists are deteriorating by approximately 22.5% per year due to these changes.
Why should you check if an email exists?
Maintaining a clean database goes beyond good practice. Verifying email protects your investment and prevents problems that directly affect your bottom line.
Emails change over time
30% of email addresses change every year. People change companies, corporate domains are deactivated, and personal accounts are abandoned. Annually, 22.5% of addresses become invalid naturally. This happens no matter how careful your initial recruitment is.
A list that is not updated regularly experiences a deterioration of 1% to 2% monthly. Since these changes are external, you can’t control them, but you can check an email periodically to keep your database up to date.
Temporary emails and fake addresses
Users turn to disposable addresses to avoid spam and protect their privacy. These emails work for short periods, from ten minutes to a week, and then disappear. Temporary addresses are automatically deleted after 24 hours on some services, generating hard bounces when you try to contact them again.
Spam traps and reputational risks
Spam traps are addresses created specifically to detect senders with bad practices. There are pristine cheats that never belonged to real users and cheats recycled from accounts inactive for more than 12 months. Sending emails to these addresses severely damages your sender reputation and can permanently blacklist your domain.
Remember that the bounce rate should never get close to 2%. Once this threshold is exceeded, suppliers mark you as spam and block your future shipments.
Impact on your marketing campaigns
Bounce rates can be reduced by 98% with effective verification. Companies that maintain clean lists experience a 20% increase in open and conversion rates. Conversely, shipping to invalid addresses wastes resources and increases operational costs when you pay by sending volume.
We recommend that you check your database regularly. The investment of verifying your emails is recovered from the first campaign.
How to check if an email is valid: 4 effective methods
What’s the best way to check if an address is working? The choice of method depends on the volume of emails you handle and how often you perform these checks.
Method 1: Use a professional email verifier
Professional tools automate the entire validation process. They check syntax, confirm that the domain exists, and perform DNS and MX record lookups to confirm deliverability. They process thousands of addresses in minutes without sending actual emails, protecting your sender reputation.
We recommend choosing services with an accuracy rate of at least 95%. These platforms run 7-stage checks that include catch-all addresses, syntax, domain existence, MX record, free accounts, and SMTP authentication. Services like EmailVerify validate approximately 100,000 emails in less than 30 minutes.
Method 2: Verification using real-time API services
If you need to verify emails while users are signing up, validation APIs integrate directly into web forms, CRMs, or landing pages. When someone enters an email, the API instantly verifies it and blocks invalid entries immediately. This method prevents fake, misspelled, or inactive addresses from reaching your database.
The usual response time is less than 500 milliseconds. These APIs perform more than 25 different tests in each direction and can process up to 200 emails simultaneously.
Method 3: Bulk Validation with Files
For large lists, you can upload files in CSV, TXT, XLS, or XLSX format. The system automatically starts validation after uploading. The results include additional “Status” and “Result” columns that rank each address.
Method 4: Basic Manual Check
For occasional checks, confirm that the email follows the format. [email protected]. Look for errors such as missing characters, extra spaces, or invalid symbols. Perform a Google search with the full address to see if it appears linked to social profiles or corporate websites.
How the technical verification process works
The email verification process uses multiple technical checks that determine if an address can receive messages. We will show you how these tests work that operate in successive layers, from basic analysis to direct connection to mail servers.
Syntax and formatting validation
First, the system analyzes the basic structure by looking for the @ character and confirming that the address follows valid technical patterns. The algorithm detects the absence of the at symbol, incomplete domains, disallowed characters and blank spaces. Regular expressions verify the format according to RFC 5322 standards, although this check does not confirm the actual existence of the mailbox.
DNS and domain record verification
The process then queries the domain’s MX records to identify the responsible mail servers. If the domain lacks valid MX records or does not exist, the address is marked as invalid. Remember that the MX priority determines which server will receive mail first.
SMTP mailbox check
The system connects to the mail server on port 25 and runs an SMTP handshake. During this process, it sends EHLO, MAIL FROM, and RCPT TO commands to confirm that the mailbox is accepting messages. A 250 response code indicates validity, while 550 indicates that the address does not exist. This check closes the connection without sending actual mail.
Detection of disposable emails and spam traps
The tools compare the domain against databases with more than 50,000 known temporary domains. Disposable emails last anywhere from ten minutes to a few hours. Spam traps include pristine traps created specifically to detect spammers and recycled traps from dormant accounts.
Interpreting Validation Results
The results are categorized into three main categories that you should be aware of:
Valid confirms correct syntax, active domain, and mailbox existence. Low deliverability indicates technically valid addresses but with limited capacity to receive messages. Invalid indicates that the server confirmed the mailbox non-existence, non-existent domain, or syntax errors.
Catch-all states make it impossible to confirm the existence of the mailbox due to server policies. In these cases, we recommend that you treat these addresses with special caution.
Conclusion
Checking if an email is valid protects your reputation as a sender and maximizes the performance of your campaigns. Equally important, you avoid wasting resources in non-existent directions that deteriorate your results.
Now you have the methods you need to validate email effectively, from professional tools to basic manual checks. Choose the method that best suits your shipping volume and frequency.
Keep your list clean, check regularly, and your deliverability rates will improve noticeably. VerifyEmails is the best solution since it applies more than 25 tests to verify your emails either individually through your registration forms, in bulk via files or by automating the entire process with the API to validate email addresses.
FAQs
Q1. What is the difference between validating and verifying an email? Validating an email means checking that the address is formatted correctly, with the right syntax and the @ symbol in place. Verifying goes further: it confirms that the mailbox actually exists on the server and can receive messages. Validation ensures that it is well written, while verification confirms that it works.
Q2. Why don’t some properly formatted emails work? An email can be properly formatted but not functional for several reasons. Domains may have expired, invalidating all associated addresses. There are also temporary emails that work only for hours or days. In addition, catch-all domains accept any address, even if the specific mailbox doesn’t actually exist.
Q3. How often should I check my email list? Email addresses are constantly changing: approximately 30% change each year, and lists deteriorate by 1% to 2% monthly. It’s advisable to check your database periodically, especially before major campaigns, to keep bounce rates below 2% and protect your reputation as a sender.
Q4. What are spam traps and why are they dangerous? Spam traps are email addresses created specifically to detect senders with bad practices. They include pristine cheats that never belonged to real users and cheats recycled from accounts inactive for more than 12 months. Sending emails to these addresses severely damages your reputation and can permanently blacklist your domain.
Q5. Which verification method should I choose for my business? The choice depends on your volume and frequency of shipping. For large lists, use professional checkers or bulk validation with CSV files. If you need to verify real-time emails when users sign up, implement a validation API in your forms. For occasional small quantities, basic manual testing may be sufficient.
