How To Park A Domain Name

What Is Domain Parking Hosting

If youre not quite ready to build your site, but you dont want to lose the ideal domain, you can buy it now and park it until youre ready to use it.

Most hosting providers offer this service for free if you either buy a hosting plan or the domain from them.

Park your domain. Image via Clemens v. Vogelsang/Flickr

It happens to a lot of people at one point or another. You come up with a brilliant idea for a website.

You run to your computer, look up the domain, and find out if its available. But you arent quite ready to build a site and launch a business.

You should probably go ahead and buy it anyway.

Get What You Need Not Want

You should look at your needs right now. If you buy a comprehensive hosting plan for traffic that doesnt materialize, youll waste your money.

Cloud hosting plans let you buy smaller capacity for lower traffic sites and ramp it up when you get more traffic.

If youre a business owner going online and are adamant about your presence or success, by all means, spend large.

Parked Domains: How To Identify Buy Or Park One

If youre looking for a unique domain name for your business, a parked domain could ruin your day.

In 2020, there were over 260 million unique registered domain names across the internet, 70.06% of which are parked.

Thats over 182 million parked domains for you to compete with.

And because theyre simply parked, with no website, you may not even realize theyre taken until youve already decided on one.

In this article, well cover what parked domains are, how they work, how to identify them, as well as how to buy, park, or even sell your own.

Ready? Lets get cracking!

Read Also: Should I Transfer My Domain From Godaddy To Squarespace

How A Domain Name Becomes An Ip Address

When you point your browser at a website, the DNS server will return an IP address.

If the server doesnt know the address, it asks other servers, which ask other servers down the chain until either the right server, known as the authoritative server, answers with the domain name or it returns an error.

This process of querying multiple servers is known as recursive name resolution.

For a popular website, when you type it in youre likely getting a cached version.

Server caches can cause problems by going out of date when a nameserver changes, but this is rare. Caches usually update pretty quickly.

What Is The Difference Between An Addon Subdomain And Parked Domain

A parked domain is any registered domain name that isnt actively connected to any service like a website or email address. Typically, itll just show an error or a this domain is for sale page.

An addon domain is a domain that you add to your web hosting platform, like cPanel, by tying it to a specific directory on your server. For example, yournewdomain.com.

A subdomain is a separate subsection of your domain, singled out by adding a part like sub.youdomain.com.

As a common use case for subdomains, check out Wikipedia and its pages serving different versions of the same page in several languages:

English version: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_parking

French: fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nom_de_domaine#Parking_de_noms_de_domaine

Also Check: How To Trademark A Domain Name

The Elephant In The Room

The first thing we need to address is the concept of domain hoarding. Hoarding digital assets can be a real problem for entrepreneurs. Maybe you keep an eye on domain auction sites. Maybe you just come up with ideas and go seek out relevant domains to register in case you decide to pursue the idea.

The problem is, for every 10 domains you register, youre probably only going to pursue one of those ideas, and for every 10 ideas you pursue, maybe one of them will reach a point where its complete enough to go live. Its not a very high success rate. Such is the situation among entrepreneurs who buy up domain after domain, only to never use them and let them languish.

Now, if these are generally unheard-of domains that cost you $1 to buy and register for three years, thats not a big deal. On the other hand, if its a good exact-match domain on a .com that costs you $5,000 to buy, only to sit in your portfolio with no content, thats a huge wasted investment. So it is that domain hoarding can become a problem.

When Do You Park A Domain Name

Very often, when people “buy” a domain name, they are only just starting out on a new website. Since getting a domain is thefirst step of many in creating a website,most people don’t have any site at the time they register the domain. As such, they can’tpoint the domain name anywhere.

Domain name registrars, the companies through which you register a domain, work around this problem by allowing you to pointthe domain to a dummy web page. When visitors type the address of a domain that has been “parked” in this way, they will see this placeholderweb page. The content placed on the dummy web page varies from registrar to registrar, and it’s possiblethat some registrars place advertisements or links to themselves on your parked domain.

There are of course other situations which might lead you to want to park your domain. For example, if you were buying many domain namesbecause you think you might want toreserve them for future use,or because you can’t decide between the different permutations of names andwant to take precautionsagainst those names being “stolen”, then it’s likely that you will want to park those domains temporarily till you either decide what todo with them or till you actually get a website ready for those domains.

You May Like: What Is Domain Name For Gmail Account

How To Remove A Parked Domain

Removing a parked domain is just as easy as adding one.

To remove an alias domain from your account:

And just like that, the domain is no longer parked!

Copyright 2022 HostGator.com LLC. All Rights Reserved.

HostGator Website Transfers

HostGator is committed to making it easy to transfer your site to your new hosting account. We can transfer website files, databases, scripts, and one free domain registration transfer.

What qualifies me for a free transfer?

HostGator provides free transfers for new accounts within 30 days of sign-up, and to newly upgraded accounts. For upgraded accounts it must be an inter-server upgrade to qualify. Please note that downgraded accounts do not qualify for free transfers.

Depending on which type of account you sign up for, we offer differing numbers of free transfers. Please refer to the chart below to see what we include for new packages.

Full cPanel Transfers is the number of cPanel to cPanel transfers that are included.

Max. Manual Transfers is the maximum number of Manual Transfers that are included with your account.

Total Free Transfers is the total number websites that we will move for you.

Unmetered Web Hosting

What happens if I exceed usage?

Domain Parking Vs A Parked Domain

While they may seem similar, theres a notable difference between domain parking services and having a parked domain. With domain parking, you have no control over what is being done to your domain while youre waiting to use it. You may be generating some income, but you run the risk of having your name ruined by the action of the parking service provider.

When you have a parked domain, the control is in your hands. Youll be able to monitor the domains activity and utilize it as you please. Generally, having a parked domain is considered to be a better option if you actually plan on using the domain at a later date.

One of the best ways to park your domain yourself is to invest in unlimited web hosting. You can get unlimited hosting for only a few dollars a month. These types of accounts have limitless add-on domain capacities. When you want to park your domain, simply point it to this unlimited account. You can then create a simple index file with some information about the domain. This would be a great opportunity to let your audience know more about your intentions with the domain. If you want to monetize it, you can add a couple of modest ads as well. The choice is yours.

You can also park a domain on top of your primary domain. In this instance, using the parked domain will provide access to your website. Its almost like youre using the parked domain to redirect users to an actual website. However, the address bar will still display the parked domain name.

You May Like: How To Create An Email Account With Your Own Domain

Your Registrar Is Also A Web Host

There are many registrars around the world. Many of them also double as hosting companies.

Its become more common for hosting providers to throw in domain names as a perk of using their service.

These free domains are a kind of loss leader to convince you to sign up for their services or to buy more expensive services like VPS.

A good example of an unexpected registrar and host is Namecheap. Many people are often surprised to find out they offer hosting services.

How Long Can I Park A Domain Name

There are no specific rules as to how long you can park a domain name without actually building and launching your website. Regardless of whether you have an active website, or are holding on to a domain name, you will need to renew your domain name registration at regular intervals . As long as you renew your registration when required, the domain name should remain yours, whether there is an actual website there or not. However, its wise to double-check with your hosting provider to ensure there are no additional terms that apply.

Read Also: How To Find Out Domain

What Is A Parked Domain And Why Should You Care

One of the first steps of the website building process is securing a domain name for your website. Your domain is your online identity and should align with your branding as closely as possible.

But, as you probably already know, good domains are tough to come by. Once theyre bought, theyre gone. That is, unless youre willing to pay an inflated price or negotiate for an already purchased domain.

Lets say youre lucky enough to find a fitting domain name for your up-and-coming site now what? You have the domain, but no website to connect it to. Im happy to inform you that youre now the proud owner of a parked domain.

Parked domains are useful for both new and experienced website admins alike. So, in this guide, Ill explain what they are, how theyre most often used, and how to set one up in your hosting account.

Disadvantages Of Domain Parking

While income-generating parking services do have their advantages, they also have a lot of restrictions. You wont have control over how your parked domain is being used. Many service providers will go the extra mile to make sure that your domain is generating as much income as possible. This involves plastering a parked page with a significant number of ads.

Ask any internet user and theyll tell you that these types of pages are the absolute worst. They take up a lot of bandwidth and can slow a computer down to a crawl. If you choose to utilize a parking service for a long period of time, your domain will eventually be associated with ad-heavy content. This can leave a bad impression on your domain name, ultimately affecting your brand. Visitors will not trust your domain. Worst of all, your reputation will suffer before you even start hosting significant content. Its a trade-off that you should think about before you invest in parking services.

You May Like: How To Change Your WordPress Domain

Alternative To Parking Your Domain With Your Registrar

If you don’t want to park a domain at your registrar’s default parking page, but you’re not ready to develop a website for it yet, oneway is to do what I do.

Although my main domains are placed onweb hosts I trust, I also have web hostingaccounts on other web hosts for my playsites, including one that offers virtually “unlimited” everything. For reasons given in the articleThe Myth of “Unlimited” in WebHosting, I don’t really rely on such “unlimited” web hosts for anything serious. But, in my opinion, they are useful for one majorthing: unlimited domain hosting for my test sites. Manyof them allow you to place an unlimited number of domains/websites on a single account.

In view of this, whenever I get a domain name that I think I might want to develop in the future, Ibuy it andpoint it tomy account at that web host. It doesn’t cost me anything to point it there since that account allows me to host asmany domains as I want at no extra charge. I simply create a blank page for those domains.

You don’t have to follow my example, of course. I’m just explaining what I do, as a personal choice.

Redirect Your Domain Parking

Some people choose to set up Coming Soon pages on parked domains, to let visitors know about upcoming projects. You can do that, leave the domain as-is, or redirect it to an existing website instead.

To add a redirect, return to the Aliases tab and select the Manage Redirection option. On the next page, you can enter the URL you want that alias to redirect users towards:

If you set up everything correctly, heres what youll see:

Keep in mind you can remove aliases and update your redirects any time you want. There are no rules for what you can do with a parked domain, so use it as you see fit.

Also Check: How To Create Your Own Website With Your Own Domain

Why Park A Domain

From brand protection and income generation to other factors related to website management, there are several excellent reasons to park an unused domain.

Thats what well explore in this section.

If you own a domain youre not using, theres a great chance that one of these reasons will apply to your situation.

What Is The Difference Between A Parked Domain And A Redirect

A parked domain either doesnt take you to any site at all or displays a single static page connected to the domain itself through the DNS. A redirected domain sends the visitor to another domain or URL when they visit the site.

Redirects are useful for SEO but also for brand protection purposes as its typically a better strategy than just leaving branded domain names parked.

For example, imagine if someone had registered the domain name google.co. Just from typos, theyd probably get hundreds of thousands of visitors per month.

To prevent this, Google has registered and redirects traffic from google.co to google.com.

Try it yourself.

Type in google.co and press enter.

Youll end up on Googles homepage.

You May Like: How Much Do Domains Usually Cost

Difference Between Addon And Parked Domains

Another type of domain you can add to your cPanel is an Addon domain. Unlike a parked domain, an addon domain can display an entirely different site than your primary domain.

If you have a Shared Hatchling plan, you can only have a primary domain. You cannot add any Addon or Parked domains because the Hatchling plans are limited to hosting only one website.

In contrast, with a , you would be able to park domains and add multiple Addon domains because they can host multiple websites, each with its website content.

When purchasing domains, most domain registrars offer domain parking. They are offering to park your domain on their servers and direct traffic to a page of their choice. This is an excellent temporary solution if you don’t have a web hosting account, but it is very restrictive because you do not control the content while it is parked with them.

Alternatively, suppose you do not yet have content for a domain you have purchased. In that case, you can add it as an alias in your cPanel for the time being. Once you’ve developed the content for your new site, you can remove the parked domain and add it as an Addon domain when you’re ready to launch the new site. Below we will go over the process of adding and removing a parked domain.

The Domain Name Owner Doesnt Plan To Use The Domain Name

Its also possible, though, that the person who registered the domain name did so without any particular project in mind or bought multiple domains to prevent cybersquatting.

This could be the case if the domain name was registered as a defensive domain name registration, or in other words, to block someone else from registering it. In some cases, a webmaster may register domain names similar to his or her primary domain name to prevent competitors from using them. This is common for companies or brands who may want to avoid their brand name, or something closely resembling it, to be used by someone else to trick their customers or users.

It could also be due to someone buying a domain name they think may be or may become valuable in order to sell it later. This type of registration may be considered domain speculation or cybersquatting.

You May Like: How Do I Know What My Domain Name Is

Parking A Domain Name

While we do not allow domain parking through Name.com hosting, you can accomplish virtually the same thing by setting the domain name as an addon domain and just leave it. To do so, follow these steps:

Once you have added the domain to your hosting plan, you need to point the domain name to it for your site to resolve.

Note: This will only work if you have the Premium or Business plans of our hosting. If you have the Personal plan, you will not be able to park any domain names.

Similar Topics