In case you have a shared web hosting plan and you create an e-mail address, you might consider the option to send and receive emails for granted, however, this isn't always the case. Sending e-mails is not necessarily part of the hosting packages that companies will offer you and an SMTP service is necessary to be able to do that. The abbreviation means Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and this is the software application that permits you to send e-mails. If you work with an email app, it connects to the SMTP server. The latter then queries the DNS data of the domain, that is a part of the receiving address to find out what email server handles its emails. After some system information is interchanged, your SMTP server provides the e-mail to the remote IMAP or POP server and the e-mail is finally delivered in the matching mailbox. An SMTP server is required if you use some sort of contact page as well, so if you have a no charge hosting package, as an example, it's probable that you will not have the ability to use this type of form as most no charge web hosting providers don't allow outgoing e-mails.