When you've got a shared website hosting plan and you set up an email address, you may take the option to send and receive emails for granted, but in fact, that isn't always the case. Sending e-mail messages is not necessarily included in the web hosting packages that providers offer and an SMTP service is required to be able to do that. The abbreviation represents Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and this is the set of scripts that permits you to send out e-mails. If you use an e-mail program, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then looks up the DNS data of the domain, which is a part of the receiving address to find out what mail server handles its e-mails. After some system information is interchanged, your SMTP server delivers the email to the remote IMAP or POP server and the e-mail is finally delivered in the corresponding mailbox. An SMTP server is required if you work with some kind of contact page as well, so in case you have a cost-free hosting plan, for example, it is very likely that you won't be able to use such a form since many free hosting providers do not allow outgoing e-mail messages.