If you have a website hosting package and you create an e-mail address, you may take the option to send and receive messages for granted, however, this isn't always the case. Sending email messages is not always a part of the website hosting packages that service providers have and an SMTP service is required to be capable to do that. The acronym stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the set of scripts that permits you to send email messages. If you are using an e-mail app, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then requests the DNS data of the domain, which is a part of the receiving address to find out what mail server manages its emails. After system information is interchanged, your SMTP server provides the message 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 sort of contact page form also, so if you use a free hosting plan, for example, it is very likely that you won't be able to make use of this type of form as most free hosting service providers don't allow outgoing e-mails.