A parked domain is one which is taken, but it is not associated with another service - web or e-mail hosting. Basically, this type of domain address won't load any actual content when you type it in a web browser, but nobody can take it as you have already registered it and you are its owner. The benefit of getting a domain and parking it afterwards is the fact that you are able to keep it and not worry that somebody else might register it meanwhile if, for example, the site for it is not ready yet. You could set a temporary Under Construction webpage for a parked domain while you are working on your web site, or forward it to some other web address - temporarily or permanently. The latter option can be employed 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 cases like this, the .net and .org domains can be parked and forwarded to the .com as you do not need individual websites for them.