When you have a web hosting package and you create an e-mail address, you may take the option to send out and receive messages for granted, however, that isn't always the case. Sending e-mails isn't always included in the website hosting plans that service providers will offer you and an SMTP service is needed to be capable to do that. The abbreviation stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and this is the set of scripts that permits you to send email messages. If you use an e-mail app, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then requests the DNS records of the domain, that is a part of the receiving address to find out which email server manages its email messages. After system information is interchanged, your SMTP server delivers the message to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the email is finally delivered in the matching mailbox. An SMTP server is necessary if you are using some kind of contact page form also, so if you work with a free of charge hosting plan, for instance, it is very likely that you won't be able to make use of such a form as most free of charge website hosting companies do not allow outgoing email messages.