What is a Parked Domain?

When you reserve a parking spot for your vehicle, it offers peace of mind by saving the time, effort, and money spent searching for the right space. Similarly, a parked domain benefits your website’s brand identity in multiple ways. The domain parking process involves registering a web address without actively using it for a website or email hosting. It helps you save your domain name for future use or leverage it in the domain aftermarket.

By learning all about parked domains, their benefits, and the registration process involved, you can ensure your website stays ahead of the competition in the domain market, contributes to passive income, and protects itself from unauthorized use.

What is a Parked Domain?

When you register a domain name without actively publishing any original content, it means you have set up a parked website. Such domains are typically used as placeholder pages—either for future use or to protect a brand’s identity. Often, domain registrars take advantage of these unused websites by earning money through the advertising content placed on them. The domain parking process happens when a registrar sets the domain’s nameservers and uses the website to display advertisements instead of active content. So, if you notice promotions on your parked domain and want them removed, you can reach out to your domain registrar for the same. While domain parking is perceived by many as a way for registrars to profit from dormant websites, it offers several practical benefits that make it a helpful tool for domain owners.

What Are the Benefits of Domain Parking?

1) Reserving a Domain Name for Future Business

Hundreds of thousands of new websites with authentic domain names are launched daily. This makes it challenging to find the perfect domain name for your website. The competition for popular, short, and easy-to-remember domain names is intense. So, instead of anticipating your competitors’ moves and losing your preferred domain name, it is best to buy and park a domain name, even if your business is in its ideation stage. Doing this helps you establish your online presence even before your business officially launches.

2) Earning From Domain Name Sales or Advertisements

When you register a popular domain name for your potential business’s website and keep it inactive, you own the right to sell the parked domain in the future, even if your business idea does not materialize. So, if there is a high demand in the future, you can use it to your advantage and sell the parked domain to the highest bidder. For example, the domain “business.com” was valued at $7.5 million in 1999. In 2007, it was sold for $345 million, which was nearly 50 times more than its original value. This indicates the potential for high earnings in the domain name market.

Alternatively, you can monetize your parked domain by asking your registrar to include advertisements on the page. This helps you earn the money that most companies spend annually on online advertisements.

3) Preventing Cybersquatting

In a nutshell, cybersquatting is when an entity registers a domain name that resembles trademarks or brand names owned by someone else, intending to profit from it. Parked domains can protect your brand against this practice by reserving the domain name under your control, thereby making it impossible for such entities to misuse it for profit.

How Can You Park a Domain?

Creating your own parked domain is a straightforward process involving a few key steps.

1) Registering a Domain Name

You should select a memorable domain name and lock it with the help of a domain registrar. Do the necessary research and pick a name that aligns with your brand identity and business goals.

2) Choosing a Domain Parking Service

Some of the best domain registrars may charge a premium fee for the best features and security guarantees. Once you hire a professional domain parking service, such as Sedo, GoDaddy, or Namecheap, contact their customer support representatives to understand everything about their services. After selecting a reputable agency, look for their features and support options to make the most of your parked domain.

3) Updating Your DNS Settings

Once registered, you can control the parked domain through a dashboard provided by your registrar. To do this, head to your domain registrar account and update its DNS settings to point to the parking service’s host servers. This process actively links your domain to the parking platform and opens up all their services for you to use.

4) Setting Up Your Domain

The next step is configuring your domain, which involves choosing ad templates, enabling features like traffic monetization, and customizing your landing page.

Once the domain is set, you should start periodically checking how your parked domain is performing in terms of ad revenue generation. You can track the performance through traffic analysis, ad revenue, or other metrics to improve your strategy and increase your returns.

Parked Domain vs Subdomains

Parameters	Parked Domains	Subdomains
Purpose	Parked domains are used to point multiple domain names to a single website.	Subdomains are subdivisions of your primary domain that help you create distinct sections within your website.
Broad usage	Parked domains are used for branding and marketing while providing easy access to your original website from multiple domain addresses.	Subdomains are used to organize content without having to register multiple domain names.
Content management	Parked domains exist to direct multiple domain addresses to a single website without making any change to the content in the original domain.	Subdomains help maintain different content and design in each section within a website, supporting diverse content strategies.
Setup process	Parked domains are easier to implement as they only require DNS changes to display the main domain’s content.	Subdomains require DNS configuration and different hosting folders to set up, allowing independent content styles and functions. But this complicates the setup process.
Brand management	Parked domains simplify brand management by consolidating multiple domain names under a single content umbrella.	Subdomains can be a useful tool for businesses with varied user requirements and engagements, as they provide organized, targeted content that helps improve brand visibility.
Strategic suitability	Parked domains are useful for unified branding. These domains ensure consistency in brand appearance and coverage across multiple domain names.	Subdomains are a useful alternative if you need separate website sections within a single domain for forums, blog content, or displaying products.

How To Keep Your Parked Domains Secure?

You can take various steps to protect your parked domains from data integrity threats and cybersquatting.

• Hiring a domain registrar with a good reputation
• Locking your domain name
• Privately registering your domain
• Registering your domain name for more than a year
• Monitoring parked domains for security

FAQs

1) What does it mean when a domain is parked?

A parked domain name is a website address registered under an entity’s name, but has minimal or no content on its domain page.

2) How to buy a domain that is parked?

You can communicate with the domain name owner to check if they are willing to sell you their asset. If they are, discuss the price with them.

3) What is the difference between a parked domain and a redirect?

A redirected domain differs from a parked domain as it redirects users to a different domain. On the other hand, a parked domain displays an empty, content-less page without redirecting visitors elsewhere.

4) How long can I keep a domain parked?

A parked domain remains registered under your name until you stop paying the renewal fee to your registrar.

5) Can I earn money just by parking a domain?

A parked domain helps you earn money through advertisements placed on the page or when you sell it at a high cost.