If you have a hosting account and you set up an email address, you may take the option to send and receive emails for granted, but in fact, this is not always the case. Sending email messages isn't always part of the hosting plans that service providers offer and an SMTP service is needed to be capable to do that. The abbreviation signifies Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the software application that permits you to send out email messages. If you use an email application, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then queries the DNS data of the domain, that is a part of the receiving address to find out what email server deals with its emails. After some system information is swapped, your SMTP server delivers the message to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the e-mail is finally delivered in the matching mailbox. An SMTP server is required if you work with some sort of contact page also, so in case you have a free hosting plan, as an example, it is very likely that you won't be able to make use of this type of form since many free hosting service providers do not allow outgoing e-mail messages.