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What is Domain Parking? Domain parking is very popular in the domain registration field. In this Register Cheap Domain Name article we are going to discuss what is domain parking and how to park a domain name. What is domain parking!

One prime use of registering a domain name is to make it functional in one or more ways, for example, developing a website or using the name for email accounts. Domain parking is the name for different uses of domains, some temporary and some permanent. To learn more about how domain parking can be useful, read on.

What Is a Parked Domain?

A parked domain does not require either web hosting or the content creation associated with creating a website. Rather, it is a domain that is either awaiting development, a domain registered for the purpose of cybersquatting, a domain registered for the sake or preventing cybersquatting, or a domain monetized for income without it being developed into a fully functional website. These four uses of registered domain are quite different.

Domain-in-Waiting

Parking a domain while preparing for development prevents a domain name from being inactive. Holding a domain name without using it is illegal, and if the registrant is not ready to develop it, domain parking is an appropriate approach. This type of domain parking can be set up in several ways. The domain that is not yet being used can be made to point at an active domain while development planning goes on. Alternatively, if there is no existing domain for it to usefully point to, it can be left with an "Under Construction" sign, or a less generic explanation of the fact that there will be a website there some day. Either of these approaches puts the domain to use without much effort: when a person visits the domain, they find useful information. These two approaches are both sometimes referred to as non-monetized domain parking.

Domain Parking for Cybersquatting and Preventing Cybersquatting

Cybersquatting is illegal, but people do it anyway. Also called domain squatting, cybersquatting consists of registering domains tied to a trademark held by someone else solely for the purpose of taking advantage of the connection by selling the domain to the trademark owner for a great profit. Also popular are domain names that involve a tradename, but are spelled with a common typographical error. In either case, the domain is parked while the cybersquatter awaits an opportunity to sell.

There are several variations on cybersquatting. One involves registering lapsed domains with the purpose of selling them back to the owner, again, at an inflated price. Another approach involves buying popular given names as domain names when the given name is not one’s own. These sites are created with the sole purpose of parking the domain and getting traffic through searches for sites of people actually having that name. In this case, the registrants have no intention of selling the site to a person of that name. The practice is known as name-jacking.

Because personal names are not generally trademarked, people to whom this happens have no protection through anti-cybersquatting rules or legislation. But people and organizations may try to forestall any and all cybersquatting attempts by registering domains connected to their given name or trademark to prevent others from registering them.

Monetized Domain Parking

Placing advertising on a parked domain in an attempt to monetize the site��"whether it will stay like that forever or is intended for future development into a website��"is one style of domain parking, also known as domaineering. Because these sites are set up and then left to work, the income received from them is known as passive income. People interested in monetized domain parking often use lapsed sites because they often��"at least initially have a great deal of traffic from the previous incarnation of the site. The person parking domains places ads on the site with the aim of creating a relationship between the domain name and the ads that will encourage people to click through on the ads, which generally pay on a per-click basis. Domain parking may be done with a single site or many.

While domain name is usually offered for free by registrars that also offer hosting, domain parking services with specialized features for domain parkers have developed to serve particular needs. Their practices and requirements differ, however. For example, they have different assortments payment methods, including checks, direct deposit, wire transfer, and PayPal, for example, though many have at least a choice of PayPal and a check. There are also different minimum payout amounts with different parking services, and these range from $10 to $100. The minimum may differ depending on the payment method. Some have a minimum portfolio size, meaning that number of domains that someone must hold to open an account. This may be a figure, such as 10 or 1000, or it may be a minimum monthly income already established for the domains. Different services have different ad bases; Google or Yahoo, generally, and a variety of optimization approaches.

It is important to note that making more or less money is not the only repercussion of choosing to monetize domains. People who land on a monetized site may either feel that they have benefitted from what’s provided or tricked by a site that isn’t a "real" website. Thus, a domain that is monetized may earn enemies as well as friends.

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