Domain names are being snapped up all the time so if you have thought of a cool domain name for a future project then it might be wise to register it now. There is a chance that if you leave it too late someone else may register it. While your planning your site you can park the domain name.

Domain parking is a process where you register a domain and do not enter the domain name servers of your hosting company. Usually the domain registrar will park your domain by default on their server, this means that if you type your domain name into a web browser you will arrive at a default page provided by the registrar.

If you are going to hold onto the domain for a while or not develop a site straight away then you may want to consider a domain parking service that offers you revenue from your parked domain. Domain parking services such as Traffic parking and sedo offer revenue sharing from your parked domain.

Revenue sharing from a parked domain works by traffic being directed to a search page or pay per click page where any visitors to your parked domain may click on the ads and you receive a percentage of the revenue from this.

Traffic parking claims that a parked domain receives on average 8 hits per month but a popular domain name may get thousands of visitors due to direct type ins and miss typed domains. Unless you have a popular domain name it probably isn't worth the effort to use a revenue sharing parking service and just use your registrars default parking page.

So domain parking is a process where you register a domain and leave it until you are ready to use it. You may or may not have a parking page where any stray visitors will see a default host parking page or if you use a domain parking service an ad targeted page.