When you've got a cloud hosting plan and you create an email address, you might consider the option to send and receive emails for granted, however, this isn't always the case. Sending e-mails isn't necessarily included in the hosting packages that service providers feature and an SMTP service is required to be able to do that. The abbreviation signifies Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the set of scripts that permits you to send out e-mails. If you use an email program, it connects to the SMTP server. The latter then queries the DNS records of the domain, that is a part of the receiving address to find out what email server handles its email messages. After system data is swapped, your SMTP server delivers the email to the remote IMAP or POP server and the e-mail is finally delivered in the corresponding mailbox. An SMTP server is necessary if you are using some kind of contact form too, so if you use a cost-free hosting plan, for example, it is likely that you won't be able to use such a form as many free website hosting service providers don't allow outgoing e-mail messages.