Email address verification mainly focuses on verifying if the email address exists or not and if it does not, why. There are dozens of email list hygiene companies to choose from and most say they do verification, but do they? A lot of services who offer to scrub email list free are actually validation companies that do not do verification. They simply cannot remove bounces. The reason is, they offer a free service for it, is because their cost to match and remove emails versus doing an SMTP handshake is way less so they can make those kinds of offers. This article focuses on email address verification and how to spot companies that simply cannot do it so you don’t waste your money.

Email marketing services require a clean list to be uploaded. Lists that are not tainted with traps and bounces. Spam fighters purchase expired domains and active the mx. It’s a good way to track if someone purchased a list which they feel is spam. Unfortunately, if you let an email list sit there for months or a year without mailing to it, it can accumulate traps, bounces and even complaints (if the recipient doesn’t remember opting in to your campaign. So if you are iffy about your list, you most likely will need to hire a list hygiene company to clean it up for you. And as we said above, there are dozens to choose from and not all of them do verification.