If you have a shared hosting plan and you create an e-mail address, you may consider the option to send and receive messages for granted, however, that isn't always the case. Sending email messages is not always included in the web hosting plans that companies feature and an SMTP service is needed to be capable to do that. The acronym stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and this is the set of scripts that allows you to send out e-mails. If you work with an email program, it connects to the SMTP server. The latter then requests the DNS records of the domain, that is a part of the receiving address to find out which email server manages its e-mails. After system data is exchanged, your SMTP server delivers the email to the remote IMAP or POP server and the e-mail is finally delivered in the matching mailbox. An SMTP server is needed if you work with some kind of contact page form as well, so in case you use a free hosting package, for example, it is very likely that you won't be able to make use of such a form as most cost-free hosting companies do not allow outgoing e-mails.