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What are domain hosting and forwarding?

When a domain is hosted, the domain is permanently attached to the location of your web site.   Pages within your web site all then start with your domain.  A page called "Contact.htm" on a hosted domain "YourFirm.com" would have a web address something like "http://www.YourFirm.com/Contact.htm".  This gives a very professional appearance.

With domain forwarding, the DNS merely points the domain to the home page on your web site.   If your site is actually hosted at something like "http://www.HostISP.com/~users/YourFirm/" typing in "http://www.YourFirm.com" would take you to your homepage, but typing in "http://www.YourFirm.com/Contact.htm" would produce a "missing page" message.  You can only access pages within the site by clicking on links within it.  The "Contact.htm" page would actually have the address "http://www.HostISP.com/~users/ YourFirm/Contact.htm" and this is how it would be listed on search engines.  Obviously this does not look quite as professional as a hosted domain and it is most useful where cost is an issue or where you have a number of secondary domain names, where one domain is hosted and the other is forwarded to the hosted domain.