The success of the Internet brought new possibilities and boosted creativity in different directions. It opened the door to alternative business’ strategies, like domain parking. 

What is domain parking?

Domain parking is the practice of registering a domain name without activating the common functions websites have. As a result, the owner has a static HTML web page, only informative, not interactive. Usually, the information those pages offer is the domain name’s objective and owner’s contact.

Why try domain parking?

You may wonder why invest in a domain name to have it parked? Here you have some reasons.

Selling attractive domain names. People realized the importance of having a catchy and memorable domain name for succeeding on the Internet. They started creating attractive domain names to register them, park them, and offer them to the best bidder. Most of the time, they register not one but many domain names to increase their chances of profit. Domain names for different industries, brands… After they own the domain names, they just publish their data and wait for potential clients’ contact.

Another scenario is a business website closes after some time. The website won’t work anymore, but it has a really attractive domain name. It can be parked and offered on sale. 

Get money from ads. Once you registered the domain name, you can simply insert ads on the landing page in exchange for a fee. You get profit from directing your visitors’ attention and clicks to those ads. 

Protect your business’ expansion and clients. When business owners have chances and plans for expanding, it’s not rare they register domain names using different TLDs (top-level domains). They register them in advance not to risk their further availability. And to protect their users from cybercriminals.

Think you have a successful e-shop, “example.de”, and you are expanding your presence first, in Europe and, in a second stage, the U.S. You can register this domain name with TLDs that get you close to your main markets “example.fr, example.it, example.es, example.nl, example.us”. It means you reserve them for your further use before someone could take them. 

In terms of security, it can happen that criminals know your business is growing and getting a reputation. They buy “example.us” before you to cheat people through the use of your brand. They build a fake site and invite users to spend on fake promotions. Users’ sensitive data could get seriously compromised while “shopping”.

To point your website is under development. Building a website is not a one-day task. If you get the ideal domain name, for sure, you can register it not to be gotten by others first. It will be parked until everything is ready for its official opening. For sure, you have found many “coming soon” landing pages while surfing on the Internet.

To inform changes to your clients. Online businesses can close, face a merge, find a better domain name, experience branding, market, administration, or ownership changes. To park the domain name to inform in its landing page the situation is useful not to confuse or lose potential clients.

Is domain parking free?

Domain parking is absolutely free. But to park a domain name, you must own it. That means you require the services of a registrar for them to check its availability and then proceed to register it for you.

Besides, the ownership is not eternal. It must be renewed, usually through a yearly fee. If you don’t renew, someone else can register the domain name.

Conclusion

Either as a security strategy or a profitable activity, it is interesting to have domain parking as an ace up your sleeve!