If you want to register a domain name to make sure that no one else will take it, but you haven't developed the web site for it yet, you can park it. It's a service that registrar companies provide if a domain is not connected to any web or e mail hosting service. That way, you can protect a brand name, for example, and you'll own the domain address in question even though it won't load any content. If you wish, you can pick some standard template that the registrar offers, like For Sale or Under Construction, alternatively you can direct the domain name to another web address. The second option is very helpful if you own a few domain names, but you want every one of them to open the same site. For example, you may register domain.net and domain.org, then park them and direct them to domain.com. In this example, you're going to need hosting for the third domain only and the traffic to the other ones is going to be redirected to it.