When you've got a shared web hosting account and you create an e-mail address, you might take the option to send and receive emails for granted, however, this isn't always the case. Sending e-mail messages isn't always a part of the website hosting packages that providers will offer you and an SMTP service is needed to be capable to do that. The acronym means Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the piece of software that enables you to send emails. If you are using an email application, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then queries the DNS data of the domain name, which is a part of the receiving address to find out what mail server manages its e-mails. 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 matching mailbox. An SMTP server is necessary if you use some kind of contact page too, so in case you work with a cost-free hosting package, for instance, it is likely that you won't be able to make use of such a form since many free website hosting companies don't allow outgoing e-mails.