3 ms·

You haven't worked in email, I presume. Yes, it does cost money to send emails at a large scale.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
I am not sure what you are trying to say. Yes, of course, it costs money. Just like serving websites costs money. And just as checking the syntax of an email address costs money (CPUs cost money and need power to run!). Now, how is that an argument for checking the syntax of an email address to avoid sending a single email and seeing whether it bounces?
- scaryclam 10y ago
  Sending a lot of bounced emails is going to get your mailservers reputation tanked, which is not an acceptable tradeoff for removing email validation. Email validation is actually really important if you send even a medium amount of email. Testing by bouncing is not a very good idea, especially since there are a lot of ways to test the deliverability of the email before you try and send it. That's not to say use a regex instead, you can do some simple checks on the domain etc or you can use one of the many services to check for you (for of a fee of course). It's understandable not to know this unless you've run a medium - large site, so here's some best practices to follow: https://documentation.mailgun.com/best_practices.html#email-best-practices https://documentation.mailgun.com/best_practices.html#email-...
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
    > Sending a lot of bounced emails is going to get your mailservers reputation tanked, which is not an acceptable tradeoff for removing email validation. ?!? OK, let's break this down: What could be reasons for an email to be bounced due to an invalid address? 1. Because the address is syntactically invalid: Your own email server will notice and reject/bounce the email. Noone outside your own server will notice. 2. Because the domain doesn't exist or has no inbound mailserver: Your own email server will do the DNS lookup(s) and bounce the email. Noone outside your own server will make any note of that (and you can't find out without doing DNS lookups anyway). 3. Because the localpart doesn't exist: You can't find that out without trying to actually send an email (and consequently risking a bounce). So, what exactly was the point of email validation "without bounces" again? The only thing you can actually do to avoid unnecessary bounces is to make sure your emails have a valid return path and to make sure that you somehow process all the bounces that arrive there to make sure that you don't continue sending emails to addresses that start sending bounces (i.e., that don't exist (any more)). If you send lots of mails, it's probably best to employ VERP for that.

I am not sure what you are trying to say. Yes, of course, it costs money. Just like serving websites costs money. And just as checking the syntax of an email address costs money (CPUs cost money and need power to run!). Now, how is that an argument for checking the syntax of an email address to avoid sending a single email and seeing whether it bounces?

scaryclam 10y ago
Sending a lot of bounced emails is going to get your mailservers reputation tanked, which is not an acceptable tradeoff for removing email validation. Email validation is actually really important if you send even a medium amount of email. Testing by bouncing is not a very good idea, especially since there are a lot of ways to test the deliverability of the email before you try and send it. That's not to say use a regex instead, you can do some simple checks on the domain etc or you can use one of the many services to check for you (for of a fee of course). It's understandable not to know this unless you've run a medium - large site, so here's some best practices to follow: https://documentation.mailgun.com/best_practices.html#email-best-practices https://documentation.mailgun.com/best_practices.html#email-...
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago
  > Sending a lot of bounced emails is going to get your mailservers reputation tanked, which is not an acceptable tradeoff for removing email validation. ?!? OK, let's break this down: What could be reasons for an email to be bounced due to an invalid address? 1. Because the address is syntactically invalid: Your own email server will notice and reject/bounce the email. Noone outside your own server will notice. 2. Because the domain doesn't exist or has no inbound mailserver: Your own email server will do the DNS lookup(s) and bounce the email. Noone outside your own server will make any note of that (and you can't find out without doing DNS lookups anyway). 3. Because the localpart doesn't exist: You can't find that out without trying to actually send an email (and consequently risking a bounce). So, what exactly was the point of email validation "without bounces" again? The only thing you can actually do to avoid unnecessary bounces is to make sure your emails have a valid return path and to make sure that you somehow process all the bounces that arrive there to make sure that you don't continue sending emails to addresses that start sending bounces (i.e., that don't exist (any more)). If you send lots of mails, it's probably best to employ VERP for that.