A parked domain is one that's taken, but it's not linked to any other service - web or e-mail hosting. To put it differently, such a domain name won't load any actual content in case you type it in a browser, but nobody can take it as you've already registered it and you are its owner. The benefit of getting a domain name and parking it afterwards is that you’re able to keep it and not stress that someone else might register it in the meantime if, for example, the site for it is not ready yet. You may set a short-term Under Construction page for a parked domain while you are working on the web site, or direct it to another web address - temporarily or permanently. The second option can be employed if you have already registered domain.com, for instance, and you obtain domain.net and domain.org, so as to protect a brand name or a trademark. In cases like this, the .net and .org domain names can be parked and forwarded to the .com as you don't need individual sites for them.