When you've got a shared hosting account and you create an email address, you might consider the option to send out and receive messages for granted, however, this isn't always the case. Sending e-mails isn't always included in the web hosting packages that companies will offer you and an SMTP service is necessary to be able to do that. The acronym signifies Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the set of scripts that enables you to send out email messages. If you work with an email program, it creates a connection to the SMTP server. The latter then searches the DNS data of the domain, that is a part of the receiving address to find out what mail server deals with its emails. After system data is exchanged, your SMTP server delivers the message to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the email is finally delivered in the matching mailbox. An SMTP server is needed if you use some sort of contact page too, so if you work with a free of charge hosting package, as an example, it's probable that you will not be able to use this type of form since many no charge web hosting service providers do not allow outgoing e-mails.