Getting Started
Understanding Verification Statuses
Verification statuses
OrbiSearch returns one of four statuses for every email address verified:
Safe
We found a conclusive or high-confidence signal that this mailbox exists and is deliverable. You can confidently include this address in your outreach or data workflows.
Invalid
We found a conclusive or high-confidence signal that this mailbox does not exist. The address will bounce. Remove it from your lists.
Risky
The email belongs to a catch-all domain, and we were unable to find a conclusive or high-confidence signal that the mailbox does or does not exist. Catch-all domains accept mail to any address, making it impossible to confirm whether a specific mailbox is real.
No email verification provider can resolve all catch-all addresses. When we cannot determine mailbox existence with sufficient confidence, we mark the result as risky rather than guessing.
How you handle risky results depends on your use case and risk tolerance. For cold outreach, most users exclude risky addresses to protect their sender reputation. For data enrichment or analytics, you may choose to retain them with the understanding that some may not be real mailboxes.
Unknown
Verification could not be completed. This is a transient issue on the target mail server's side, typically a temporary server outage, greylisting delay, or rate limit imposed by the recipient's domain. It is not an OrbiSearch error.
Unknown results usually resolve on retry. Re-verify these addresses after a few hours.
Substatuses
Each result includes a substatus that provides the specific reason:
| Substatus | Status | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| deliverable | Safe | Mailbox confirmed to exist |
| catch_all | Risky | Domain accepts all mail, mailbox existence unconfirmed |
| policy_blocked | Risky | Recipient's mail gateway blocks verification, email may still be deliverable |
| mailbox_not_found | Invalid | Mailbox does not exist at this domain |
| invalid_syntax | Invalid | Email address is malformed |
| no_mx_records | Invalid | Domain has no email servers configured |
| mailbox_disabled | Invalid | Email account has been deactivated |
| mailbox_full | Invalid | Mailbox storage is full |
| smtp_unreachable | Invalid | Could not connect to the mail server |
| disposable | Invalid | Temporary or throwaway email service |
| role_account | Risky | Generic address (info@, support@, sales@) |
| greylisted | Unknown | Mail server delayed verification, automatically retried |
| timeout | Unknown | Target mail server did not respond in time |
| verification_blocked | Unknown | Verification temporarily blocked by the provider |
| ip_blocked | Unknown | Verification blocked by the mail server |
| technical_issue | Unknown | Verification could not be completed at this time |
How OrbiSearch statuses compare to other providers
Different providers use different labels for similar concepts. For example, what OrbiSearch calls "safe," others may label "deliverable" or "valid." What we call "invalid," others may call "undeliverable."
The most important difference is how catch-all emails are handled. When a provider cannot find a conclusive or high-confidence signal for whether a mailbox exists on a catch-all domain, some mark these addresses as "undeliverable," causing you to discard prospects that may be perfectly valid. They lack the granularity to distinguish between "we know this doesn't exist" and "we couldn't find a conclusive or high-confidence signal."
OrbiSearch distinguishes between the two. If we find a conclusive or high-confidence signal that a mailbox does not exist, we mark it "invalid." If we cannot find a conclusive or high-confidence signal on a catch-all domain, we mark it "risky," so you know exactly what we know, and can make your own decision based on your use case and risk tolerance.