If you wish to register a domain to ensure that nobody else is going to take it, however, you have not built the website for it yet, you could park it. This is a feature that registrar companies provide if a domain isn't connected to any web or e mail hosting service. In this way, you are able to protect a brand name, for example, and you will own the domain name in question although it won't open any content. If you'd like, you can choose some default template that the registrar provides, like For Sale or Under Construction, alternatively you can direct the domain to a new web address. Your second option is extremely helpful in case you own a number of domain names, but you want every one of them to open the same website. For example, you could 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 address only and the traffic to the other ones will be redirected to it.