A website consists of files (like index.html, index.php, images, .css files, etc.) and in many cases a database. When you have a website, you need it to be accessible 24/7 so that your visitors can browse it.
Hosting is the space on a server where your website's files and database are located and accessed by your visitors and search engine bots.
For a site visitor to be able to see a site, they need to know the Internet address where the server that has the site files is hosted. This address is called an Internet Protocol address or an IP Address. IP addresses look like this:
173.194.70.113
If you type in your favorite browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Chrome) the above IP address, you will see google.com.
It is almost impossible for a person to remember hundreds of IP addresses for all the sites they want to visit every day. Here is where domain names come into play. A domain name is an easy-to-remember address of a website. You would rather type "google.com" than 173.194.70.113 in your browser. But they both lead to the same web site.
Having a domain name is not compulsory, but without it, you will probably be the only person visiting your site by its IP address.
Hostlantern customers can easily purchase new domain names from the Order section in the Hostlantern User Area.
