If you have a cloud hosting package and you create an e-mail address, you may take the option to send and receive messages for granted, but in fact, that isn't always true. Sending email messages isn't necessarily part of the hosting plans that companies will offer you and an SMTP service is required to be able to do that. The acronym stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and this is the piece of software that permits you to send emails. If you use an e-mail program, it connects to the SMTP server. The latter then looks up the DNS data of the domain, which is a part of the receiving address to find out which email server deals with its email messages. After system data is interchanged, your SMTP server delivers the message to the remote IMAP or POP server and the e-mail is finally delivered in the related mailbox. An SMTP server is needed if you work with some kind of contact page as well, so if you work with a free of charge hosting package, for instance, it's probable that you won't have the ability to use this type of form as many cost-free hosting companies do not allow outgoing e-mails.