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verify an existing email

marklandry 24 May, 2010
Hi,
I was wondering if there's a way to verify whether or not an email address actually exists?
nml375 24 May, 2010
Hi,
There's no universal way of automatically verifying an email address.

What you can do, however, is to send an email to the address provided, containing a validation-link back to your site. This way, the user would only recieve the link if the email address is valid at that point in time.
The email verification CFPlugin provides this kind of verification, provided that you've set up an appropriate DB Connection with the form.

/Fredrik
marklandry 24 May, 2010
Thanx for your quick reply -
We're asking folks to provide emails of their friends who might be interested in our services, so a validation link would work for the person filling out the form, but not for the email address they provide...
GreyHead 25 May, 2010
Hi Mark,

There are scripts around that will do their best to test for you. For example php-smtp-email-validation. None of them are prefect - or anything like as they depends on accurate info being returned to them. There's also a risk that you may get flagged for asking too many probing questions of the mail-servers!

Bob
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