in reply to Re^5: Determine if domain is actually used for email
in thread Determine if domain is actually used for email

Seeing if the server is listening on port 25 and is responding in a manner consistent with a SMTP server and not giving a 521 status code is a pretty safe bet though.

So am I right that, although not 100% reliable, this might be a good way to check if a domain has an actual email with no risk to be caught as spammer? Is there a code which implements this approach?
  • Comment on Re^6: Determine if domain is actually used for email

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Re^7: Determine if domain is actually used for email
by MidLifeXis (Monsignor) on Oct 05, 2011 at 13:21 UTC

    Depends how many servers you are looking at and how good the IDS is on the site. If it was enough of a problem, I could see using that fingerprint to tag a site to watch behavior more closely. ISTR discussions about this many years ago on SPAM-L. Perhaps browsing the archives for doorknocking, testing addresses, and some similar search terms might be useful.

    --MidLifeXis