There are 2 services you'll need for a functioning web site - a domain name plus a website hosting plan for it. When you type the domain address in your web browser, you see the content that is uploaded within the website hosting account, but if that domain address isn't linked to such an account or to an e-mail service, it's parked. To put it differently, the domain is registered and you are its owner, but it does not have any content of its own. Rather, it can open either a pre-made “Under Construction / For Sale” Internet page from the registrar company, or it may be forwarded to any other URL of your choice. The main advantage of parking a domain address is that you can keep it and ensure that nobody else is going to take it. In the meantime, it will not occupy a slot for a hosted Internet domain within your account. You can also park domain names if you have a .com, for instance, and you register domain addresses with other extensions such as .net, .org or country-code ones to direct them to the main web site so as to protect a brand name.