When you have a website hosting package and you set up an email address, you might consider the option to send and receive emails for granted, but in fact, this is not always the case. Sending emails is not always a part of the website hosting plans that providers will offer you and an SMTP service is required to be capable to do that. The abbreviation signifies Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and this is the software application that enables you to send out email messages. If you work with an email application, it connects to the SMTP server. The latter then searches the DNS records of the domain, that is a part of the receiving address to find out which mail server deals with its email messages. After system information is exchanged, your SMTP server provides the e-mail to the remote IMAP or POP server and the email is finally delivered in the corresponding mailbox. An SMTP server is required if you are using some kind of contact form also, so in case you work with a free hosting plan, for example, it's probable that you will not have the ability to use this type of form as many free hosting providers don't allow outgoing email messages.