If you have a shared hosting account and you set up an e-mail address, you may consider the option to send and receive messages for granted, but in fact, this isn't always the case. Sending email messages is not always included in the website hosting plans that companies will offer you and an SMTP service is necessary to be capable to do that. The abbreviation signifies Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the set of scripts that enables you to send out e-mails. If you work with an e-mail app, it connects to the SMTP server. The latter then queries the DNS records of the domain name, which is a part of the receiving address to find out what mail server handles its emails. After some system information is swapped, your SMTP server delivers the e-mail to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the email is finally delivered in the related mailbox. An SMTP server is required if you use some kind of contact page form as well, so in case you work with a cost-free hosting package, as an example, it's probable that you will not be able to make use of this type of form since many free website hosting service providers do not allow outgoing emails.