A parked domain is one which is taken, yet it is not linked to any other service - web or e mail hosting. Essentially, such a domain address will not load any real content if you type it in an Internet browser, but nobody else can take it as you've already registered it and you are its owner. The benefit of acquiring a domain and parking it afterwards is that you can keep it and not worry that somebody else could possibly register it in the meantime if, for instance, the site for it is not ready yet. You could create a short-term Under Construction webpage for a parked domain name while you are working on the site, or direct it to another web address - temporarily or permanently. The latter option can be used when you have already registered domain.com, for instance, and you get domain.net and domain.org, so that you can protect a brand name or a trademark. In such a case, the .net and .org domain addresses can be parked and forwarded to the .com as you don't need individual sites for them.