: An easy way to detect bogus email addresses is to send an email to the address with a confirmation link inside. If the user doesn't click on the confirmation link their account is not activated

@Kristi941

An easy way to detect bogus email addresses is to send an email to the address with a confirmation link inside. If the user doesn't click on the confirmation link their account is not activated and they can't use their website until they do. This will catch fake email addresses but not prevent someone from creating a throw away address. However, this will deter the vast majority of users who are abusing your system.

In your case, you can go deactivate everyone's account (probably after a set period of time) unless they confirm their email address. This will be inconvenient to your users but if these bogus email addresses are a real problem this will solve it. Then you can verify future members using the technique above.

If you use PHP you can use the checkdnsrr() function to see if MX records have been set up for the domain name in their email address. If they haven't, or the domain doesn't exist, you will know immediately. (It is possible that some domains do not have these records set up that are legitimate. But these are few and far between).

list(, $domain) = explode('@', $email_address);
if (function_exists('checkdnsrr') && !checkdnsrr($domain, 'MX'))
{
// invalid email address
}

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