If you have a cloud hosting package and you set up an e-mail address, you might consider the option to send and receive emails for granted, however, this isn't always the case. Sending email messages isn't always part of the hosting plans that providers will offer you and an SMTP service is necessary to be able to do that. The abbreviation signifies Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and this is the software application that allows you to send out e-mail messages. If you work with an email program, it creates a connection 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 some system information is swapped, 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 necessary if you are using some kind of contact page form as well, so if you have a free hosting plan, for instance, it is very likely that you won't be able to make use of this type of form as many free of charge website hosting providers don't allow outgoing email messages.