Domain Forwarding is a service you can request from your domain registrar (the place you buy your domain names) that allows you to "forward" the domain through to another site.
What happens with a forwarded domain name is that, when a user types your domain name into a browser, the site that comes up is the site you have forwarded that to.
This can be useful when you have several variations of a website or company name, or some common misspellings of that name, but you want them all to go to the same place.
Say your company name is Tammi's Tools.
You have the domain name tammistools.
com, but you know that many people will automatically type in Tammy instead of Tammi, so you also purchase tammystools.
com, then forward that to the correct spelling so, even if people put it in incorrectly, they still get to you.
When you simply "forward" the domain name, the final destination will appear in the address bar, so even if someone types in tammystools.
com, it will end up saying tammistools.
com.
There is another level of forwarding, however, that will keep it with the original spelling instead.
This is called forwarding with masking.
When you also "mask" the domain name, what is originally typed will always stay in the address bar as long as the person is on your site.
There are many reasons you may want to do this, but the most common is with affiliate links.
When you use an affiliate link for a product that you know you will be promoting often over a long period of time, buying a domain name for it is a great way of remembering your link so you can easily give it to people.
When anyone types the domain name into their browser, it is forwarded through your affiliate link to the sales page.
When you also mask the name, the user never knows they're going to an entirely different site, they can't see your affiliate link (some people will actually remove your affiliate code so they can get the credit for a sale themselves!) and you get credit for any sale.
When you buy a domain name, if you host your sites on a different place, you are probably used to changing the DNS to point the new name to your hosting account.
(If you host with the same company that you register your domain names with, you probably aren't familiar with this concept.
) When you want to forward or forward with masking, instead of changing the DNS, you simply add the forward.
Most domain registrars will let you forward.
Many will also let you mask.
Some of them will charge for one or both services, but GoDaddy allows you to do either as part of their regular service.