A parked Internet domain is one which is taken, but it's not associated with any other service - web or e-mail hosting. Put simply, such a domain address will not load any real content if you type it in a web browser, but no one else can take it as you have already registered it and you are its owner. The main advantage of acquiring a domain and parking it afterwards is that you are able to keep it and not worry that someone else might register it in the meantime if, for example, the website for it is not ready yet. You can set a temporary Under Construction page for a parked domain name while you are working on your web 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, in order to protect a brand name or a trademark. In this situation, the .net and .org domains can be parked and directed to the .com since you don't need separate websites for them.