A parked domain is one that is taken, but it's not linked to another service - web or e mail hosting. Put simply, this type of domain won't load any real content in case you type it in a browser, but no one can take it as you've already registered it and you are its owner. The benefit of getting a domain and parking it afterwards is that you can keep it and not worry that someone else may register it in the meantime if, for example, the site for it is not ready yet. You may create a short-term Under Construction page for a parked domain while you are working on the site, or forward it to some other web address - temporarily or permanently. The second option can be used when you have already registered domain.com, for example, and you obtain domain.net and domain.org, so as to protect a brand name or a trademark. In this case, the .net and .org domains can be parked and forwarded to the .com because you do not need different websites for them.