In case you have a cloud web hosting account and you create an email address, you might consider the option to send out and receive messages for granted, however, this isn't always the case. Sending e-mail messages isn't necessarily part of the web hosting plans that providers will offer you and an SMTP service is required to be capable to do that. The abbreviation represents Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and this is the set of scripts that allows you to send out email messages. If you are using an email program, it connects to the SMTP server. The latter then queries the DNS data of the domain, which is a part of the receiving address to find out which mail server manages its emails. After some system data is exchanged, your SMTP server delivers the message to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the email is finally delivered in the matching mailbox. An SMTP server is needed if you are using some sort of contact form as well, so if you use a cost-free hosting package, as an example, it is likely that you won't be able to use this type of form as most no charge hosting providers don't allow outgoing e-mails.