You might wonder about email validation service. It is also called scrubbing. You would come across two major steps to cleaning your email lists.
The first would be email validation, which would be to remove as much crap as possible. It would be worth mentioning here that verification is a relatively expensive data hygiene process. Therefore, email validation removes as much as possible before you require verification. It would save you adequate time and money.
The known crap would mean your suppression list inclusive of dead emails, honey pots, spam traps, complainers, etc. You would be required to remove any of the bad emails that you have on the list.
Most of the email scrubbing actions should be inclusive of the following –
·       De-duping or removing duplicates
Most people would look forward to emailing these addresses, as they would contact B2B and these email address might be who they want to contact. However, you do not want to mail this data.
·       Keywords and profane
Removing an email address with specific words such as admin, shit, www, spam, etc. would remove any part of the email address. It would remove the email validation too. Therefore, be careful if you were using this filter.
·       Bad domains
You might come across known bad domains associated with honey pots and spam traps. Therefore, you might consider scrubbing against the list and removing any emails you have with these domains.
·       Domain extensions
It would remove any email address with an extension. Rather than being bad, the email addresses you do not want to mail to would be a waste of time.
·       Numerical emails
Emails starting with numbers only are usually bad emails.
·       Length of the email
At times, you would get an unusually lengthy email address. The email address should not be more than 15-25 characters in total.
Consider understanding the whole idea of email scrubbing your list. It would be inclusive of removing as many bad-known emails as possible. However, it would be possible that you might end up removing some good emails as well. However, if you want to be safe then losing one to two percent of your good emails would be relatively better than losing your server or hitting a spam trap.
It would not be possible to remove all spam traps or honey pots by an individual. Rest assured there are numerous added daily and relatively impossible for you to know. The considerably large ISPs would neither advertise nor pass around this information. In case, someone claims they could remove all kinds of honeypots and spam traps, rest assured to stay away from such claims.
Lastly, usually, if you do not know from where your purchasing list or scraping list comes from, the chances of you coming across various examples cited above would be relatively higher. In case, you were having an opt-in list or they were generally business lists, you would not be able to see half of these things in your list. However, it would be in your best interest to be safe than sorry. Rest assured that email validation would be your best bet.
