A parked domain name is one which is taken, however it's not connected to some other service - web or e-mail hosting. Basically, such a domain won't open any actual content in case you type it inside a browser, but nobody else can take it as you have already registered it and you are its owner. The benefit of obtaining a domain and parking it afterwards is that you’re able to keep it and not worry that someone else could possibly register it in the meantime if, for instance, the website for it is not ready yet. You may create a short-term Under Construction website page for a parked domain address while you are working on the web site, or direct it to another web address - temporarily or permanently. The second option can be used if you have already registered domain.com, for example, and you get domain.net and domain.org, so as to protect a brand name or a trademark. In this situation, the .net and .org domain addresses can be parked and forwarded to the .com because you do not need separate sites for them.