Every email address you verify will be assigned one of the following statuses: "deliverable," "undeliverable," "risky," or "unknown." Let's take a closer look at what each of these statuses signifies:
- Deliverable: This category indicates that the email address is valid and active, allowing you to send emails to it without any problems. In simple terms, these emails are good to go.
- Risky: A "risky" result indicates potential issues with the email address, which may lead to bounces or low engagement. Exercise caution when sending to risky addresses, such as "Accept All," "Full inbox," or "Role" addresses. Such email addresses may require either removal from your recipient list or additional testing to ensure successful delivery.
- Undeliverable: Emails falling into this category are considered undeliverable, meaning that there's a high chance your messages won't reach the intended recipients and you’ll experience a high level of hard bounces. It's best to avoid sending messages to these addresses for the sake of your sender reputation.
- Unknown: An "unknown" status is returned when we cannot receive a response from the recipient's mail server. This typically occurs when the destination mail server is slow or temporarily unavailable. If you retry verifying "unknown" emails after approximately 5 minutes, you may receive more certain statuses such as "Deliverable," "Undeliverable," or "Risky.
In addition to the email verification statuses mentioned above, the report provides specific reasons associated with each status. These reasons give more light on the verification outcome by offering detailed explanations.
Below, you will find an explanation for each reason.
- Accepted email - The address is valid and can accept emails.
- Accept-all: "Accept-all" or "Catch-all" is a configuration applied to an email domain. It involves setting up a specific "Catch-all" email address that collects all incoming emails sent to the domain, regardless of whether the recipient's email address exists or not. For instance, if someone makes a mistake and sends an email to "Namee@domain.com" instead of "Name@domain.com," the email will be received by the "Catch_all@domain.com" address but will be bounced back to the sender because the "Namee@domain.com" email address doesn't actually exist. Verifying such email addresses can be challenging. Sending emails to an "Accept-All" or "Catch-All" domain can potentially lead to an increase in bounce rates (undelivered emails) and a decrease in open rates (emails not being read). Therefore, it's important to exercise caution when sending emails to such domains to ensure your messages are delivered successfully.
- Mailbox exists - We’ve validated the email address via our alternative check mechanism, even though the email domain is configured as accept-all.
- Role account - email address belongs to a company or a specific department within a company, rather than being associated with a particular individual employee. Sending newsletters or campaign emails to such addresses can harm your open rates and may lead to spam complaints. Therefore, it's best to avoid sending any promotional or marketing emails to role addresses.
- Full Inbox - When an inbox is marked as "Full," it means that the recipient's mailbox has reached its storage limit and can no longer accept new emails. Any new messages sent to this address will likely bounce back or be rejected until the recipient clears out their mailbox or increases their storage capacity.
- Invalid syntax - This means that the email address does not follow the correct format for an email address. Common syntax errors include missing or misplaced characters such as the "@" symbol or the domain name.
- Rejected email - - This status occurs when the mail server of the recipient's email address refuses to accept or deliver the email message. The rejection can happen due to various reasons, such as spam filters, blacklisting, or specific rules set up by the recipient's email provider.
- Invalid domain - When the status shows "Invalid domain," it means that the domain name in the email address does not exist or should not be used for emailing. This could occur if the domain has expired, been deactivated, or if you mistakenly entered an incorrect domain name.
- Invalid username - This reason indicates that the username portion of the email address does not exist or should not be used for sending emails. It could mean that the account associated with that username has been deleted, deactivated, or never existed in the first place.
- Invalid MX - The "Invalid MX" reason suggests that the domain does not have a valid MX (Mail Exchange) record. An MX record is essential for routing emails to the correct mail server. If the domain lacks an MX record, it typically means that the email services associated with that domain are not properly configured.
- Disposable - A disposable email address is a temporary email account that is typically used for short-term purposes or to avoid providing a permanent email address. These addresses are designed to expire after a certain period, making them less reliable for long-term communication.
- Connection error - This reason indicates that an error occurred while attempting to establish a connection with the recipient's mail server. It could be due to network issues, server downtime, or firewall restrictions, preventing a successful connection.
- Timeout - A timeout reason indicates when the mail server is taking too long to respond to a request. It could be caused by server congestion, high traffic, or a slow network connection. The sending server may give up on the connection attempt after a certain period of waiting.
- Unavailable SMTP - This reason suggests that the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server, responsible for handling outgoing email, is currently unavailable or unresponsive. It could be a temporary issue with the server or a configuration problem that needs to be resolved.
- Unexpected error - The "Unexpected error" reason indicates that an unforeseen or unhandled error occurred while trying to connect to the mail server. This could be due to a software glitch, server misconfiguration, or an issue with the recipient's email infrastructure.