A parked Internet domain is one which is taken, but it's not associated with some other service - web or e mail hosting. Essentially, this kind of domain name will not open any actual content when 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 advantage of obtaining a domain and parking it afterwards is that you will be able to keep it and not stress that someone else may register it in the meantime if, for instance, the site for it is not ready yet. You may set a short-term Under Construction webpage for a parked domain while you're working on the site, or direct it to some other web address - temporarily or permanently. The second option can be used if you have already registered domain.com, for instance, and you get domain.net and domain.org, so as to protect a brand name or a trademark. In such a case, the .net and .org domain addresses can be parked and directed to the .com as you do not need individual websites for them.