How can I identify misspelled email domains in my database?
Summary
What email marketers say7Marketer opinions
Email marketer from MarketingProfs advises segmenting your email list and monitoring bounce rates for each domain. High bounce rates for specific domains can indicate a high prevalence of misspelled addresses. She also suggests using a double opt-in process to reduce the likelihood of typo submissions.
Email marketer from ZeroBounce suggests employing an email validation service to remove invalid email addresses, including those with misspelled domains. They focus on identifying and flagging typo domains in real-time during sign-up or data entry.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum recommends creating a script that checks for common typos, such as missing letters or transposed characters in domain names. Additionally, they suggest comparing the domain against a list of known valid domains and flagging those that don't match.
Email marketer from EmailHippo explains that they maintain an extensive database of valid and invalid email addresses. They utilize pattern recognition and data analysis to detect suspicious or malformed email domains.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares their method of compiling a list of domains with clicks in the past year and filtering out those not in it, resulting in a list of over 150K domains, which may include typos and small domains.
Email marketer from Reddit suggests using a combination of regular expressions and a dictionary of common misspellings to identify potential typo domains. They recommend focusing on common top-level domain (TLD) errors like ".con" instead of ".com".
Email marketer from StackOverflow suggests implementing a fuzzy matching algorithm, like Levenshtein distance, to compare email domains against a list of known good domains and highlight potential misspellings based on a calculated difference score.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from SpamResource suggests monitoring for typo-squatting domains, where attackers register domains that are common misspellings of legitimate brands. Identifying these domains helps prevent phishing and other malicious activities that could impact email reputation.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains the importance of proactively identifying problem domains within your email list. They recommend looking for patterns such as high bounce rates associated with specific domains, which can indicate typos or invalid addresses. They advise that removing these problematic addresses improves deliverability.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests exploring a service like Kickbox for typo detection. They also share their experience of creating a large file of bad domains based on send errors.
What the documentation says6Technical articles
Documentation from Kickbox details that their email verification service identifies invalid email addresses including those with misspelled domains. Their system checks for common typos and suggests corrections to the user, allowing for real-time correction and prevention of invalid entries.
Documentation from Microsoft explains that one can use data validation rules within database systems (like Access or SQL Server) to check for common domain misspellings by referencing a lookup table of valid domains. This ensures only valid domains are entered.
Documentation from Debounce shares that their service provides typo detection, identifying common misspellings in email addresses. They have a database of common domain typos that they use to flag and correct mistyped email addresses during verification.
Documentation from Verifalia highlights its advanced typo correction engine which can accurately detect and suggest corrections for misspelled domain names and local-parts. They maintain an up-to-date database with common domain name typos and their corresponding corrections.
Documentation from Mailgun explains that their email verification API can identify misspelled domains in real-time. The API uses a combination of syntax checks, domain checks (including MX records), and typo detection algorithms to determine the validity of an email address.
Documentation from RFC Editor specifies the syntax rules for valid domain names (RFC 1035, RFC 1123, etc.). These documents provide rules for validating that the structure and characters used in domain names are technically correct before additional typo-specific checks are implemented.