When you have a hosting plan and you create an email address, you might consider the option to send and receive emails for granted, however, that isn't always true. Sending e-mail messages isn't necessarily part of the website hosting packages that providers feature and an SMTP service is needed to be able to do that. The acronym stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the piece of software that enables you to send e-mail messages. If you are using an email program, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then looks up the DNS data of the domain, that is a part of the receiving address to find out what email server handles its email messages. After some system information is interchanged, your SMTP server provides the e-mail to the remote IMAP or POP server and the e-mail is finally delivered in the related mailbox. An SMTP server is required if you work with some kind of contact page also, so in case you have a no charge hosting plan, for instance, it is very likely that you will not be able to make use of this type of form as many cost-free web hosting service providers do not allow outgoing e-mail messages.