Email Verifier: 25-Check Trust Scoring

The TrekMail Email Verifier reviews an address before you add it to a sending list. It combines format checks, domain and DNS checks, account-specific bounce suppression and risk signals into a 0-100 trust score. The score helps you prioritize review. It does not prove ownership, consent or future delivery.

What the verifier can tell you

It can identify obvious problems, such as an invalid address format, a disposable domain, a domain without mail routing, or an address previously suppressed for the current account. It also looks for signals that deserve more care, including unusual local parts, possible domain typos, DNS authentication signals and domain reputation information.

The exact check details shown for an address are the best record of what happened at that time. Some checks depend on DNS and the receiving provider, so an unavailable service is not treated as proof that an address is good or bad.

Choose a verification mode

Deep verification is available only when it is enabled in the dashboard. Many major mailbox providers intentionally do not provide a dependable answer for individual mailbox probes. TrekMail does not claim a mailbox exists merely because a remote server accepted a check, and it does not treat an unavailable answer as a rejection.

For provider domains where an additional probe would not be useful, Deep jobs use the regular 1-credit rate. Review the cost estimate before starting the job.

Choosing without overthinking it

How the score is built

The score starts with the address and the domain's ability to receive mail. Certain failures make the result invalid immediately, for example invalid syntax, a disposable domain, no usable MX route or an address suppressed for your account.

Addresses that pass those gates receive a score based on several groups of signals:

• address quality, such as a likely typo, plus addressing or an obviously random local part;
• domain health, such as MX routing, SPF and DMARC visibility, blocklist information and domain age;
• context signals, such as role addresses and known free mailbox providers;
• deeper risk information when the selected mode and the receiving system make it available.

The score is deliberately not a sending permission. Keep using permission, audience expectations and normal bounce monitoring even for Safe addresses.

Why a working address can still have a lower score

An address can be technically reachable and still receive a Valid or Risky score. For example, the domain may have incomplete authentication records, the local part may look unusual, or a domain reputation signal may need care. Conversely, a high score does not show whether the intended person reads the mailbox. This is why the verifier exposes the recorded checks rather than only a single pass/fail label.

What is account-specific

The verifier can use a prior suppression record for the current TrekMail account. That protects an account from retrying an address that has already produced a relevant bounce signal there. It is not a public statement about that address across every sender or system.

Result categories

Open a result row to see the signals behind it. Do not use a single low-risk signal, such as a missing SPF record, to infer that a person or mailbox does not exist.

What happens to a bulk list

1. TrekMail normalizes duplicate addresses and checks the requested list against its job limit.
2. It calculates the exact credit cost before the job is accepted.
3. The job processes in the background while the dashboard reports status and totals.
4. You filter the completed result, inspect notable rows and export the group needed by the next step.

Jobs can be pending, processing, completed, partial, cancelled or failed. A cancelled job keeps processed rows and refunds unprocessed work. A partial job means that the available result should be reviewed as a subset, not assumed to represent the entire original list.

Credits and retention

Quick costs 1 credit per address. Deep normally costs 2 credits, subject to the provider-specific cost shown in the estimate. Your monthly plan allowance is used before purchased credits on the standard TrekMail host. Purchased credits do not expire.

Jobs and their exported results are retained for 15 days. A cancelled job can still provide the rows that were processed, and unprocessed work is refunded.

The verifier does not change your sending configuration automatically. Use the export to update your own list process, then continue to honor unsubscribes, hard bounces and user preferences.

Use the results responsibly

Verification reduces avoidable bounces. It cannot clean a list that was collected without permission or replace careful sending practices. Segment the result, start cautiously with uncertain contacts and stop sending to addresses that bounce or opt out.

For a practical walkthrough, see Getting Started or Bulk Workflow.