Did you know that 11 billion emails are sent daily?

77% of consumers prefer email as their primary source of communication.

But it’s very difficult to determine a fake Email Address.

According to a report, 94% of employees can’t differentiate between a real and fake email address.

The question arises on how to determine a fake email address.

Let’s start with the types of fake emails.

There are two types of fake emails:

• Emails sent by spammers, fraudsters, and imposters
• Unreachable emails that are invalid

There is no hard and fast rule to check the validity of an email address. However, an email validation method should be accurate, fast, and free.

Let’s start with methods for checking the validity of email addresses.

Methods to find valid email addresses

Different methods and tools are available to find valid email addresses. These methods and tools are free as well as paid ones. Following are some of them:

Ping the email address

This method is free and accurate. However, it is not a quick method.

For example, you have an email address [email protected], and you want to verify it. Turn on the Telnet option in Windows or download the puTTy tool. Press Ctrl+R and enter cmd. It will open the command prompt window. Type this command “nslookup -type= Mx abc.com.” It will show the MX records of the domain google.com when you press enter.

Usually, a single domain can have different MX records.

We can send a test message to one of those servers. To do this, connect to an email server and type this command “telnet+server+25.” It will look like this:

Telnet abc-smtp-in.1.google.com 25

Now, we say “Hello” to the other server. After that, we will send an email to the email address which we are testing. We can use a disposable or any other email address for this purpose. The server response will tell us whether the email address is valid or not.

Finally, if it’s a valid email address, it will result in an “OK” response. Otherwise, you will receive a 550 error message.

The error message displayed usually looks like this:

“The email account does not exist.”

“The email account you are trying to reach is disabled.”

Use a free email service

This method is free. However, it is not a quick and entirely accurate method.

Use a free email address provider like Google or Yahoo. Send an email to the email address under question. Wait for a few minutes on in some cases, a few hours, the message will bounce if it’s a fake email address.

The problem with this method is that the message might bounce back after a long time, like a day or two, depending upon the server. Nevertheless, it’s free and does not require technical knowledge.

Use paid email verification tools.

This method is paid. However, it is very accurate and relatively fast. You don’t need any technical knowledge or a large setup. All you need is the list and a tool like MailTester. You will get a clean, verified, and 100% accurate list of your potential customers.

The paid tools use various parameters like syntax errors, hard bounces, MX records, domain validation, and disposable email for email validation. These tools can also help you to crosscheck your email list for known spammers and scammers.

This is where email verifier by  MailTester comes into action. It allows you to lower your mailing costs and increase the marketing ROI through incredible features.

Following are some of the features of MailTester:

1. You can remove the duplicates, spam trap, and disposable email addresses easily.
2. It validates the email addresses through risk validator, MTA, and domain validator.
3. If an email address matches with the one having complaints against it, it is eliminated automatically.
4. Syntax quality is verified for better results.
5. SMTP checker allows the real-time bouncing report.
6. Hard to verify email address are checked through Anti-grey-listing technology.
7. Last but not least, you can download the specific segment of the results or a whole list of selected results.

This method is worth the money if you are looking for an easy way to increase your domain and business reputation hence increase in marketing ROI.

Now, the question arises on how to check whether an email is a spam?

Steps to determine spam emails

• There is a probability that an original and important email might land in the spam folder. However, most emails landing in the spam folder are fake and spam.
• If a business is sending emails using a free ISP or a large string of numbers is present before the @ sign, there are high chances that it’s fake and spam.
• Mostly, the emails coming from spammers and scammers have a lot of spelling, grammar, and syntax mistakes.
• If an email from an individual or business asks you for personal info, the scammers might be trying to steal your information.
• The emails from a company don’t focus on greetings. Usually, the emails from business are in a formal tone. If you receive an email having exaggerated greetings for you, it might be fake.

Conclusion

These aren’t the hard and fast rules. A business might use a free email address. A company might have spelling, syntax, or grammar errors in their emails. Nevertheless, you can verify the email addresses to make a perfect list since there are enough signs to raise the red flag. and action accordingly. Tools like email checker can help you avoid all the frustration of loss of time and money through a just single click.

Want to try MailTester?

You are at the right place. MailTester is more than an email verifier and cleaner. It’s a service allowing you to use all the tools and resources to improve your deliverability, sender reputation, and hence better marketing ROI. All you need is to focus on your business, MailTester will do the rest.

We promise, your emails won’t end up in the “SPAM FOLDER” anymore.