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We used the "Domain Validation" method to check our email list.
In the help file it notes this as the "recommended" way to validate emails and describes that it checks the part after the "@" to see if it is valid.
However, it seems the validation process is NOT checking for an "MX" record for that name, it is only checking perhaps for an "A" record.
The net result is that we had a large number of email addresses marked as "fail" when we knew that all of them were good.
It turns out that organization did not have any "A" records but did have "MX" records for inbound mail.
This was verified by the following three methods:
1. An "nslookup" was done with the "company.com" part of the email address. It returned nothing. Then changing to type "MX" it returned three valid mail server addresses.
2. A run of "DNSReport" tool from the "DNSStuff.com" site reported that mail was configured and running properly. It did not there were no "A" records for the top level domain.
3. We had just sent some emails to these folks and they replied just fine.
So it appears that Mail List King is not properly validating the domain. It should be looking for "MX" records which are what are really needed to send mail to that domain.
Let me know if you have a fix for this we can use.
Thanks for the follow-up, Nigel. This is an unsual case and you do not often see a domain in DNS with only MX records and A records for "www" subdomain but no A records for the root domain.
If you need the domain name with this arrangement, let me know and I can email you their domain name.
I've reviewed the documentation and code. MLK performs an A lookup because local MX lookups are often blocked on local networks and we wanted a robust validation function that would work in almost network arrangements.
We've not seen a situation where there is a valid MX record, but no A record, it must be a very unusual cause. Please send us further details.
Email Validation - Domain Validation - Wrong
Posted - Aug 21 2009 : 11:52:19
