When you've got a shared web hosting package and you create an e-mail address, you may take the option to send out and receive messages for granted, however, this isn't always true. Sending e-mail messages isn't always included in the hosting packages that companies offer and an SMTP service is needed to be capable to do that. The abbreviation means Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the set of scripts that allows you to send out e-mails. If you work with an e-mail app, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then queries the DNS data of the domain, which is a part of the receiving address to find out which mail server handles its email messages. After system information is swapped, your SMTP server delivers the e-mail to the remote IMAP or POP server and the email is finally delivered in the corresponding mailbox. An SMTP server is necessary if you work with some kind of contact form as well, so if you have a cost-free hosting package, for instance, it's probable that you will not be able to make use of this type of form since many free hosting providers do not allow outgoing emails.