In case you have a shared hosting account and you create an email address, you may take the option to send out and receive messages for granted, however, this isn't always the case. Sending email messages is not necessarily part of the website hosting plans that providers offer and an SMTP service is necessary to be able to do that. The abbreviation signifies Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the piece of software that enables you to send e-mails. If you use an e-mail program, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then looks up the DNS data of the domain name, which is a part of the receiving address to find out what email server manages its e-mails. After system information is interchanged, your SMTP server provides the email to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the e-mail is finally delivered in the corresponding mailbox. An SMTP server is required if you work with some kind of contact page also, so in case you work with a no charge hosting package, as an example, it is likely that you won't be able to make use of such a form as most free web hosting companies don't allow outgoing email messages.