If you have a web hosting plan and you create an email address, you may take the option to send out and receive emails for granted, however, that isn't always true. Sending emails is not always a part of the website hosting packages that service providers offer and an SMTP service is needed to be capable to do that. The acronym means Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the software application that allows you to send e-mails. If you use an e-mail app, it connects to the SMTP server. The latter then searches the DNS data of the domain name, which is a part of the receiving address to find out which email server deals with its email messages. After system data is exchanged, your SMTP server provides the e-mail to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the e-mail is finally delivered in the corresponding mailbox. An SMTP server is necessary if you work with some kind of contact page form also, so if you work with a no charge hosting plan, for instance, it's probable that you won't be able to make use of such a form as many free hosting service providers don't allow outgoing emails.