How to verify e-mail address?

Overview

This guide will walk you through the process of using the Email Domain Guard API to verify and analyze email addresses. The Email Domain Guard is a comprehensive email verification and domain analysis service designed to enhance communication integrity, data accuracy, and security for businesses.The Email Domain Guard consists of multiple checkers that analyze specific aspects of a given email address. The results from these checkers are combined into a multifactor analysis to provide a risk score. The service is currently only available via API under the endpoint Verify Email Address.

Learning Goals

In this tutorial, the user will be focused on:

• Validating an email address
• Understanding the response

Key Features

The Verify Email Address API of the Email Domain Guard combines multiple services in one, all based on a given Email Address.

1. Email Component Extractor: Extracts and analyzes the various parts of an email address, including the account name, top-level domain, base domain, and full domain, ensuring detailed validation and data accuracy.
2. Email Format Checker: Validates the structure and syntax of email addresses to ensure they adhere to standard conventions, minimizing errors and enhancing data quality.
3. Domain Existence Checker: Verifies the existence and operational status of domain names on the internet, ensuring communications are directed to valid and functioning domains.
4. Disposable Mail Checker: Identifies email addresses associated with disposable or temporary email services, helping to maintain data quality and authenticity by filtering out unreliable addresses.
5. Freemail Checker: Detects freemail addresses provided by public email service providers, assessing the quality and legitimacy of user-provided email addresses.
6. Role Category Checker: Identifies and categorizes role-based email addresses (e.g., support@example.com) to enhance personalization and communication strategies.
7. Whois Checker: Retrieves and analyzes WHOIS information for a given domain, providing valuable details such as registration and expiration dates, and other relevant metadata.
8. DNS Blacklist Checker: Checks if a domain’s IP addresses are listed on DNS-based Blackhole Lists (DNSBLs) to identify potential sources of spam or malicious activity.

Prerequisites

Authorization

Before trying CDQ APIs, user must be authenticated:

1. Paste the API Key in the console's security bar into the X-API-KEY field.

2. After pasting the API Key, the green padlock will appear.

3. Check your API key for missing characters or extra space before trying.

No API Key?

1. Check how to get one on authentication page.
2. Follow the steps above.

Step 1: Validate an Email Address

To verify an email address, two methods can be used:

• Build-in Console: Documentation's feature to test endpoint.
• CURL: To be tested from the terminal or any other tool like Insomnia or Postman

Build-in Console

To verify an email address using build-in console:

1. Use the Verify Email Address endpoint.
2. Use provided email for verification or use another one.

3. Click Send button to execute the request.

CURL

To verify an email address using CURL:

1. Use the following CURL in the terminal or tool of your choice:

curl -i -X POST \
  https://api.cdq.com/email-analysis/rest/emails/verify \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'X-API-KEY: << API KEY >>' \
  -d '{
    "email": "developer-portal@cdq.com"
  }'

Step 2: Analyzing the Results

The response from the API will contain the results of various checks performed on the email address.

1. Analyze the response to understand all the checkers:

{
  "email": "developer-portal@cdq.com",
  "summary": {
    "isDisposable": false,
    "isBlacklisted": false,
    "isPublicWhois": true,
    "isValidFormat": true,
    "isFreemail": false,
    "isRoleBased": false
  },
  "status": {
    "code": 200000000,
    "technicalKey": "DEFAULT_OK",
    "details": [
      {
        "id": 200600010,
        "message": "Domain age is older than 1095 days.",
        "technicalKey": "EMAIL_DOMAIN_OLDER_THAN"
      },
      {
        "id": 200600001,
        "message": "Email address has very low risk.",
        "technicalKey": "EMAIL_VERY_LOW_RISK"
      }
    ]
  },
  "risk": {
    "score": 0,
    "classification": {
      "name": "Very low risk",
      "technicalKey": "VERY_LOW_RISK"
    }
  },
  "format": {
    "isValidFormat": true,
    "parts": {
      "localPart": "developer-portal",
      "topLevelDomain": "com",
      "baseDomain": "cdq",
      "domain": "cdq.com"
    }
  },
  "domain": {
    "isValidDomain": true
  },
  "role": {
    "isRoleBased": false
  },
  "freemail": {
    "isFreemail": false
  },
  "disposable": {
    "isDisposable": false
  },
  "whois": {
    "isPublicWhois": true,
    "entry": {
      "dates": {
        "creationDate": "1996-12-14T05:00:00Z",
        "updatedDate": "2023-11-09T00:14:56Z",
        "ageInDays": 10091,
        "ageInYears": 27.646575342465752
      },
      "registrar": {
        "email": "abuse@amazonaws.com"
      },
      "registrant": {
        "name": "Amazon Registrar, Inc."
      }
    }
  },
  "dnsBlacklist": {
    "isDnsBlacklisted": false
  }
}

2. Understand the particular sections of the response:

• status - Contains status messages of the service and information on the availability of background services.
• risk - Provides a risk-classification together with a risk score of the email address. Gives more details on the risk level of the domain and its reliability.
• format: provided by Email Format Checker - Contains information about the format of the email address, e.g. if the string given is a valid email address and a teardown of its components. These fields ensure that email addresses are correctly formatted and adhere to the standard conventions, minimizing errors and enhancing data accuracy.
• domain: provided by Domain Existence Checker - Indicates if the domain is valid. This test is perfomed during the runtime of the EDG-request and ensures that provided domain names are valid and operational, contributing to accurate data management and effective communication.
• role: provided by Role Category Checker - Distinguishes email addresses that are associated with generic roles or functions within an organization, rather than being tied to specific individuals. Possible roles are:

• freemail: provided by Freemail Checker - Identifies freemail addresses, commonly provided by public email service providers. It assists in assessing the quality and legitimacy of user-provided email addresses by distinguishing them from domain-specific or business email addresses. Emails sent from a corporate domains server are considered to be more reliable than freemail addresses.
• disposable: provided by Disposable Mail Checker - The fields inside this block indicate wheather the email address is temporary or disposable. It checks more than 3000 disposable email domains. This helps to ensure the quality and authencity of the email-address.
• whois: provided by Whois Checker - Contains information about the domain of the email. The Whois Checker provides a powerful tool for obtaining domain information, particularly the age of a domain. It allows you to determine the age of a domain by retrieving its registration date. Understanding the age of a domain provides insights into its credibility, longevity, and potential history.
• dnsBlacklist: provided by DNS Blacklist Checker - Contains fields that indicates if the domain is blacklisted or is known for spamming or malicous activities. The DNS Blacklist checker is designed to check if an email domain's IP addresses are listed on one or more DNS-based Blackhole Lists (DNSBLs). It assists in identifying potential sources of spam, malicious activity, or suspicious behavior by verifying the IP addresses associated with email domains against known DNSBL databases. The DNSBL Checker provides a valuable tool for enhancing data security, protect your brand, and maintain a safe online environment.

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