A parked domain name is one that's taken, but it is not associated with any other service - web or email hosting. Put simply, such a domain won't open any real content when you type it inside a web browser, but nobody else can take it as you have already registered it and you are its owner. The best thing about obtaining a domain name and parking it afterwards is the fact that you will be able to keep it and not worry that someone else might register it in the meantime if, for example, the site for it is not ready yet. You can set a temporary Under Construction website page for a parked domain address while you're working on the site, or forward it to another web address - temporarily or permanently. The second option can be employed 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 this situation, the .net and .org domain addresses can be parked and forwarded to the .com as you don't need different websites for them.