How to Validate Email Addresses Online in 2024

Jul
07

How to Validate Email Addresses Online in 2024

A guide listing the different ways of how to validate email addresses online in 2024.

So, you are tired of working tirelessly to build an email list and craft compelling messages only to fail to reach your intended recipients. Well, don’t worry. We understand the frustration of having non-delivered emails. Usually, an unverified email list is to blame for this issue. That is why we have put together this guide on how to validate email addresses online in 2024. By verifying your email addresses for deliverability and validity, you can reduce the hard bounce rate and get your email to your prospects. Doing this will also get rid of invalid and toxic addresses. It also protects recipients against online scams such as phishing that rely on phony email addresses.

Summary of 8 ways of How to Validate Email Addresses Online in 2024

Detailed Review of How To Validate Email Addresses Online in 2024

1. Syntax Email Validation

Syntax verification analyzes an email address to find out if it is formatted correctly. It also checks if prohibited elements are present. In most cases, a valid email address has four sections:

Recipient name: This part indicates an email mailbox that belongs to an individual. It can also belong to a department or even an organization. The rule is that the recipient name should not exceed 64 characters in length. It may contain upper or lower-case letters, numbers, and special characters.

@symbol: this symbol separates the recipient name from the main domain name.

Domain name: It specifies the online space owned by a mailbox provider - for instance, Yahoo Mail and Gmail.

Top-level domain: It is the highest level of a domain name in the online space. It usually comes after the domain. Common examples include .net, .com, and .org.

Let us use this email address to understand how to conduct syntax verification.

johndoe1234@gmail.com. In this case:

johndoe1234 is the recipient's name
@ symbol is the separator
gmail is the domain name
.com is the top-level domain

Taking into account the above, valid email prefixes include abc@gmail.com, abc-d@gmail.com, abc_def@gmail.com, or abc.def@gmail.com, while invalid email prefixes include abc-@gmail.com, abc..def@gmail.com, .abc@gmail.com, or abc#def@gmail.com. Likewise, invalid email domains could be abc@gmail.c, adc.def@gmail#archive.com, abc@gmail..com.

2. DNS Lookup

DNS lookup is still a reliable method on how to validate email addresses online in 2024. It involves searching for details about a domain name. Through this method, you can identify important information such as IP addresses, domain availability, owner of the domain, registration date, and expiry date, among others.

To perform the DNS lookup, please follow the following steps:

Open your console app and execute this command:

nslookup johndoe2345@mailnator.com (make sure you replace johndoe2345@mailnator.com with the email you are validating)

You will receive a list of host names and their respective DNS details
If there aren’t any details for the domain under search, likely the domain doesn’t have existing DNS records or it doesn’t exist

Please note that a DNS lookup is not thorough because of DNS propagation delays, cached data, and unintended misconfiguration of DNS records. These shortcomings can affect email deliverability.

3. IP Address Lookup

Performing an IP lookup is another sure way on how to validate email addresses online in 2024. It is way simpler than it sounds. An IP address lookup will determine the location of the IP address. Usually, an email message has the IP address of the server it came from. You may not see this IP address because it is placed in the source code of your email. To find it, you look at the source code and search for the ‘received from’ section.

Once you spot the IP address, copy and paste it into an IP address search tool. Here, you will see the organization associated with the IP address and where it originated from. So, if the IP address came from a country you didn’t expect, chances are that someone could be spoofing it. The only shortcoming of this approach is that it can be time-consuming if you are working with thousands of emails. Besides this, it will not give you an indication of the deliverability of the email.

To Validate your email: https://freeweb-tools.com/tool/email-validator

4. Sending Test Emails from Different Accounts

A straightforward way of finding out if an email can be delivered is to send an email to that address. You may not want to use your primary email to conduct these tests. It is too risky. A secondary email will suffice in this situation.

As you test each email, you need to remove bounced accounts. The whole process will be largely manual. So, it can be quite a hassle to go through your entire list.

5. Pinging the Server

If you are looking for a better way than sending test emails to your prospects, then pinging the server might be helpful. This method helps you confirm the validity of an email address. So, how does pinging the server check the validity of email addresses?

Ping refers to a diagnostic tool for resolving connection issues. So, when it comes to email verification, pinging involves using a query tool that helps you establish if an email address is valid or not. When you ping an email address, you are reaching out to an SMTP server to check the Mail Exchange records if they can find the domain of that email.

If you are using a Windows device, you will do the following:

Activate Telnet on your Windows device. To enable Telnet, open the Control Panel and click on Programs > Features > Turn Windows features on or off. A pop-up window will appear where you will search for the checkbox next to the Telnet Client and click OK.
Open the command prompt by typing cmd in the Search bar and clicking the appropriate option. Once open, execute this command: nslookup –type=mx domain.com. It will give you several MX records linked to the domain.
Select the one with the lowest preference number and connect to the Telnet server using this command: telnet {mail server address} 25.
Now introduce yourself by typing HELO and hitting Enter.
Identify yourself by typing your email or a random one next to ‘mail from’
Type the recipient email next to rcpt. Do it this way: rcpt to: {email address to verify}.
The server will respond with either an error message or an ‘OK’ message. If you receive an ‘OK’ message, know the email address is valid.

6. Use an Outreach Tool

Another way how to validate email addresses online in 2024 is by verifying email addresses via an outreach tool. Outreach tools usually offer more than just cold emailing. So when shopping for an email outreach tool, choose the one with an email verification feature. With such a tool, you can validate emails directly from the tool.

There is a lot of convenience when you use an outreach tool. It not only cleans your email list but also eliminates the need to understand the technicalities of email validation. After all, you are not wasting your time on separate tools. A good email outreach tool will validate emails as soon you enter them into the system. It should also give you a summary report stating whether an email is valid, bad, or risky.

7. Check for Disposable Emails

Disposable email allows users to receive emails on a temporary email address. The address will cease to exist after a specified time. This service is widely abused by fraudsters to make fake sign-ups on a website for fraudulent purposes.

To eliminate disposable email addresses, you can do periodic audits to establish the deliverability of your emails. Disallow sign-ups from known disposable email address domains. However, these strategies are not effective and are somewhat time-consuming. So, the best approach is to use an email validation API to identify disposable emails. All you need to do is make an API request by providing the email IDs and the access key. The API will automatically detect any disposable email.

8. Using an Email Verification Tool

To complete our guide on how to validate email addresses online in 2024 email verification tools. As the name suggests, these tools help you simplify and automate email verification processes. They work through a series of steps to verify each email address. Comprehensive tools will conduct several checks, including domain record check, syntax check, disposable address detection, honeypots, role-based account detection, and extended SMTP verifications.

There are several email verification tools. A simple search on Google will give you several options. You can check each one of them to find the right one. There are a few factors that you have to take into account.

First, you need to find out the cost. Some will offer pay-as-you-go credits, while others will charge you a subscription. Others are entirely free.
You should also find out their success rate.
To streamline the verification process, look for a tool with a friendly user interface and simple integration choices.
Finally, you need to check their processes for thoroughness. Look for a tool that employs various verification processes, such as domain verification, syntax checking, and mailbox verification.

If you need a headstart, here are some reliable email verification tools available today.

Closing Thoughts

Taking an extra step to verify emails online is the best way to ensure successful inboxing. Proper email hygiene will reduce your bounce rate, boost your sender score, and protect your sender's reputation. More importantly, you will have more opportunities to engage with the right prospects who might convert into paying customers. So, try most of the above email validation strategies to improve your emailing efforts. In most instances, your email validation software will use the above techniques. If this post was helpful, you might also want to know how to avoid email scams.

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