Redirects, parking and holding pages: what to do with a name you are not using yet

A name you are not using yet still resolves to something, or to nothing, and the choice has consequences. Four options, with different trade-offs.

Option 1: nothing at all

No records, no site. The address does not resolve.

Neutral and free. Costs you nothing and earns you nothing — including the enquiry from someone who typed the address hoping to find out whether it was available. For a portfolio held for investment, that is a real cost: direct type-ins are the highest-quality enquiries a domain generates.

Option 2: a holding page

A single page saying what the name is and how to make contact. Fast, static, honest.

The best default for inventory. It converts type-in traffic, establishes that the name is held deliberately by someone reachable, and costs a few kilobytes. Keep it plain: a statement, a contact route, nothing that pretends to be a business.

For a name you intend to sell, show a price where you sensibly can. A visible number converts buyers who are comparing candidates and will not wait for a negotiation.

Option 3: a redirect

Point it at another site you own. Appropriate for a defensive registration, a variant of your main name, or a name you acquired to consolidate.

Use a permanent redirect and point it at the relevant page rather than the home page where an equivalent exists. Do not redirect an unrelated name at your main site in the hope of transferring something — it transfers nothing useful and looks like what it is.

Option 4: parking with advertising

A page of automatically generated advertising. It earns small amounts on names with residual traffic.

Two cautions. The revenue on most names is negligible relative to the renewal. More importantly, parked advertising has repeatedly been treated as evidence in disputes — particularly where the ads reference a brand or its competitors, which automated systems do without being asked. For anything close to a brand term, parking converts a neutral holding into a liability.

What matters technically

Whatever you choose, get the basics right: a valid certificate so the address does not produce a browser warning, and consistent behaviour across the plain and prefixed forms of the name. A name that shows a security warning is worse than one that does not resolve, because the warning is an active signal of neglect.

And if you serve the same holding page across many names, make sure each carries its own name in the text. An identical page across a hundred domains with nothing distinguishing them is the pattern automated systems recognise as a portfolio of no substance.

The default worth adopting

A plain holding page naming the domain, stating it is available, and offering one way to make contact. Valid certificate, no advertising, no fake business. It costs almost nothing, it is legally the cleanest of the four, and it captures the enquiries that the other options throw away.