Spam-trap risk

A mailbox can accept mail and still be unsafe for a campaign. Use these signals to protect sender reputation and investigate how risky contacts entered your list.

A Deliverable Address Is Not Always a Safe Address

• Pristine traps identify harvested, purchased, or poorly sourced lists.
• Recycled traps are abandoned mailboxes later repurposed by providers.
• Typo traps enter lists through misspelled addresses or look-alike domains.
• Domain traps use an entire domain as a collection point for unwanted mail.

A Risk Signal You Can Act On

InboxValid keeps the normal verification vocabulary intact. Typo traps are detected today: a look-alike provider domain comes back invalid with sub_status: misspelled_domain and the evidence in trap_kind and trap_confidence. As broader trap intelligence lands, results carry those same two fields rather than a new status vocabulary.

No verifier can guarantee detection of every private trap. The absence of a signal is not permission to send without consent.

Stop the Source, Not Only the Address

1. Use confirmed opt-in and retain evidence of consent.
2. Never buy, scrape, or rent email lists.
3. Remove repeated bounces and long-term inactive contacts.
4. Validate at collection and before reactivating old lists.
5. Make unsubscribe easy and honor it promptly.
6. Investigate the acquisition source when a trap signal appears.

For implementation details, see the API reference and the rest of the Product Guide.