In case you have a web hosting plan and you set up an e-mail address, you may take the option to send out and receive emails for granted, but in fact, that isn't always true. Sending emails isn't necessarily part of the website hosting plans that service providers have and an SMTP service is required to be able to do that. The abbreviation signifies Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the set of scripts that permits you to send e-mail messages. If you are using an email application, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then searches the DNS data of the domain, which is a part of the receiving address to find out which email server manages its email messages. After some system data is swapped, your SMTP server delivers the email to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the email is finally delivered in the related mailbox. An SMTP server is needed if you are using some kind of contact form too, so in case you have a cost-free hosting package, for example, it's probable that you won't have the ability to make use of this type of form since many cost-free hosting service providers don't allow outgoing e-mails.