When you've got a website hosting plan and you create an e-mail address, you might consider the option to send out and receive messages for granted, however, that isn't always true. Sending email messages is not always included in the hosting plans that companies have and an SMTP service is necessary to be capable to do that. The acronym stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the set of scripts that permits you to send email messages. If you are using an email application, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then queries the DNS data of the domain name, which is a part of the receiving address to find out what mail server manages its emails. After some system data is exchanged, your SMTP server delivers the message to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the email is finally delivered in the corresponding mailbox. An SMTP server is necessary if you work with some sort of contact page form too, so if you have a free of charge hosting package, for instance, it is very likely that you won't be able to use such a form since many cost-free hosting providers do not allow outgoing email messages.