What is the difference between a hard bounce and a soft bounce?

[TwungTister]

I’m subscribed to a discussion group. I haven’t gotten a Daily Digest for two days.
Twice now I’ve received reactivation requests and I can’t figure out why mail to me is bouncing. (The eeaddress I use for that group is unfiltered. So far no junk!) Well I’ve reactivated and viewed my email history. I wonder what’s the difference between a hard and a soft bounce?

P.S. I meant twice in a few months, not twice this week.

[Coldfire]

I have no idea, but since it isn’t about this message board, I’ll move it to GQ for you.

[ZipperJJ]

Check out this page for “soft bounce” and this page for “hard bounce”.

soft bounce
“soft bounce” - when an email you’ve sent reaches the intended recipient because it has been manually forwarded by a network administrator in charge of redirecting all misguided email on the recipient’s domain. A soft bounce means you have the domain correct (@blahblah), but you have the first half of the address wrong (wrong_wrong@blahblah).

A soft bounce occurs most often because of an error in a subscriber’s email address. A misspelled name or something as simple as a missing space or dash can cause a soft bounce.

hard bounce
“hard bounce” - when an email message you have sent is returned to you without reaching the recipient. Often it will be returned with the message “user unknown” or “host unknown.”

A hard bounce occurs most often because of an error in a subscriber’s email address (misspelled, wrong host). You should unsubscribe hard bounces from your list.