What are some examples of old or unusual email domains found in databases?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares how they recently mapped about 800k domains to Google Workspace and O365 and shares an example of an odd domain they found.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum explains that they still see a surprising number of 'aol.com' email addresses in their database, indicating that some users have maintained these accounts for a very long time.
Email marketer from Reddit recalls seeing domains like 'prodigy.net' and 'compuserve.com' in older databases, noting they evoke a sense of internet history.
Email marketer from Reddit mentions defunct email providers like 'juno.com' and 'netzero.net' as examples of unusual domains now rarely seen.
Email marketer from EmailGeeks Community shares that they've encountered email addresses with entirely numerical domains (e.g., 123456789@123.456), often associated with system-generated or temporary accounts.
Email marketer from Reddit mentions finding email addresses formats using non-standard separators, which preceded the widespread adoption of the '@' symbol.
Email marketer from EmailGeeks Community explains that they have found very old email addresses using literal IP addresses as the domain part (e.g., user@192.168.1.1), reflecting early internet practices.
Email marketer from Reddit mentions long-defunct university email domains or very obscure academic institutions as unusual finds.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum shares that they found country-specific email domains that were popular in specific regions but are rarely seen globally, such as '.co.uk' email address, where the owner was actually from the USA.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that the fun part of looking through databases is seeing old style email addresses like freeserve, wannado, rocketmail and even googlemail.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks remembers making a version of a website just for webtv and then getting thank you emails from webtv users. Mentions Microsoft's idea to merge webtv with a dvr and call it "UltimateTV".
Expert from Spam Resource explains that some domains, while still technically active, are rarely used for new email addresses but persist in older databases, such as those from companies that have been acquired or changed names. This can lead to some being seen as unusual.
Expert from Word to the Wise highlights the instances of email addresses that predate modern standardization. Those email addresses sometimes used characters or formats now considered invalid. They are rarely encountered now.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from MXToolbox provides insight into the kind of DNS configurations used that were less standardized. This resulted in more unusual or less standardized domain names compared to modern conventions, leading to now-uncommon domain extensions.
Documentation from ICANN notes that older databases may contain a higher proportion of email addresses without Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), making the presence of IDNs relatively 'unusual' when encountered in legacy data.
Documentation from IETF details the older syntax standards for email addresses, which allowed for formats considered unusual or invalid by modern standards (e.g., the inclusion of spaces or unusual characters without proper escaping).
Documentation from IANA explains that in early days of the internet some Top Level Domains (TLDs) were in use that have since fallen out of favor or are no longer active, finding them would be unusual.
Documentation from IETF highlights older registration practices that sometimes resulted in unusual or less standardized domain names compared to modern conventions, leading to now-uncommon domain extensions.