A parked domain name is one that's taken, but it's not associated with any other service - web or e mail hosting. Basically, such a domain name will not load any actual content when you type it within a web browser, but no one can take it as you have already registered it and you are its owner. The benefit of getting a domain name and parking it afterwards is that you are able to keep it and not stress that someone else could possibly register it meanwhile if, for instance, the website for it is not ready yet. You are able to set a temporary Under Construction website page for a parked domain name while you are working on the website, or direct it to some other web address - temporarily or permanently. The latter option can be used when you have already registered domain.com, for instance, and you obtain domain.net and domain.org, so that you can protect a brand name or a trademark. In this situation, the .net and .org domains can be parked and forwarded to the .com because you do not need separate sites for them.