A parked domain name is one that's taken, yet it is not associated with any other service - web or email hosting. To put it differently, such a domain will not open any actual content in case you type it within a web browser, but no one else can take it as you've already registered it and you are its owner. The main advantage of obtaining a domain name and parking it afterwards is that you will be able to keep it and not worry that someone else could possibly register it in the meantime if, for instance, the site for it is not ready yet. You could create a temporary Under Construction website page for a parked domain while you're working on your 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 example, and you acquire domain.net and domain.org, so that you can 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 since you do not need individual sites for them.