Glossary
Email verification glossary
The terms you'll see in verification reports, explained simply.
- Email verification
- Checking whether an email address is correctly formatted, on a working domain, and likely to accept mail. Learn more about email verification
- Email list cleaning
- Removing invalid, disposable, and risky addresses from a list before sending. Learn more about email list cleaning
- Bulk email verification
- Verifying every address in a CSV or TXT file in one job. Learn more about bulk email verification
- Catch-all email
- An address on a domain that accepts mail for any recipient, so the individual mailbox can't be confirmed. Learn more about catch-all email
- Disposable email
- A temporary address from a throwaway inbox service that stops working quickly. Learn more about disposable email
- Hard bounce
- A permanent delivery failure, usually because the address or domain doesn't exist. Learn more about hard bounce
- Syntax check
- Confirming that an address follows the correct format, for example one @ and a valid domain.
- MX record
- A DNS record that tells the internet which servers receive mail for a domain. No MX record usually means no mail.
- Mailbox verification
- Asking the receiving mail server whether a specific mailbox exists, without sending an email.
- Unknown result
- A verification outcome where the server gave no clear answer. In MailGuard, Unknown results use no credits. Learn more about unknown result
Ready to try it? Start with bulk email verification or read about email list cleaning.