Why All the Email Addresses You Send from Should Really Exist

Once upon a time somebody – somewhere – somehow decided that it would be good idea to send email to their mailing lists using an email address in their “From:” field that didn’t really exist. Oh, we’ve all seen them: “

do**********@ex*****.com











“, “

no****************@eg.com











“, “

ar**********************@ie.com











“. Or with a caution in the email itself, “Do not reply to this email because the address does not accept email and I just made it up off the top of my head because I thought that it would be a good idea to send email from a fictitious email address like that would give me credibility.”

In case you can’t already tell from the light touch with which we’ve handled the above examples, sending email “from” an email address that doesn’t really exist is a spectacularly bad idea. In fact, it may even qualify as the Epic Fail of “from” email address ideas. Not to mention that having a real ‘From’ address is both required by email protocol, and by the law.

But even if you don’t care about those things, you should always have a working ‘From’ address. Because for one thing, people will reply, and they, and their ISPs and spam filters, are going to get ticked off when it bounces.

And for another thing, it reduces your credibility to less than zero. It shows that clearly you are someone who spoofs email addresses (which is hey, what spammers – and usually only spammers – do). And that for some reason – even though in your mind it may make perfect sense – for some reason you are hiding your true sending identity. Even if your subscribers really already know your true identity, it still looks as if you are hiding it.

But perhaps the biggest reason of all to not use non-existent email addresses in your “from” field when you send email is because the ISPs and spam filters are going to check, and when they find that your email address doesn’t really exist, they will just know that you are a spammer (because, hey, again, it’s what spammers – and usually only spammers – do).

And then they will block your email, or send it to the junk folder.

Keep in mind that it’s not only important to not be a spammer – it’s also important to not look like a spammer.

So remember – only use email addresses which really exist, and can receive email.