When you've got a web hosting package and you create an email address, you might consider the option to send and receive messages for granted, but in fact, that isn't always the case. Sending e-mail messages isn't necessarily part of the web hosting plans that companies will offer you and an SMTP service is necessary to be able to do that. The abbreviation represents Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the set of scripts that allows you to send e-mails. If you work with an email application, it connects to the SMTP server. The latter then requests the DNS records of the domain, that is a part of the receiving address to find out which mail server handles its email messages. After some system data is exchanged, your SMTP server delivers the email to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the e-mail is finally delivered in the matching mailbox. An SMTP server is needed if you work with some kind of contact page form as well, so if you use a cost-free hosting plan, as an example, it's probable that you won't have the ability to make use of this type of form as many free website hosting companies don't allow outgoing e-mails.