If you want to register a domain to make certain that no one else is going to take it, but you have not built the website for it yet, you can park it. This is a service that registrar companies offer whenever a domain address isn't connected to any web or email hosting service. This way, you'll be able to protect a brand name, for instance, and you will own the domain in question although it won't load any content. If you wish, you can choose some standard template that the registrar provides, like For Sale or Under Construction, or you can direct the domain name to an alternative web address. The second option is very useful in case you own a few domains, but you want all of them to open the same website. For instance, you can register domain.net and domain.org, then park them and forward them to domain.com. In this example, you'll need hosting for the third domain name only and the traffic to the other ones will be redirected to it.