question When to domain park and when not to

[svftw]

As stated above, this thread is just my personal curiosity of when I should domain park and when it's not a good idea to do that. So I guess the ideal types of domains for parking.

Just by reading a bit on the domain parking forum, I have gotten an idea that it "hurts your pagerank" (I'm assuming this is your rank on Google and how far it will show up as a relevant search?)

I have a handful of domains that I like but I'm guessing that if I start a business, I don't want my rank going down so any domains for that use should not be parked.

Another question is what happens after parking?

Say if I change my name server to a hosting site and now try to run it as a business site to get clients solely for myself will I have to start from "square one" to get it up (obviously the search engine will take note of the recent changes I'm making, and if I have legitimate relevant pages linking back to my site it will increase my search engine rank and visibility right?)

...I guess what I'm asking here is that it doesn't hurt you in any "permanent way" right?

Looks like at this state I have more questions than answers but I'd rather start asking them now instead of researching and then assuming way more than I need to.

Thanks in advance for the clarity anyone can add to this thread (and if need be, I would love to explain some more on my end to provide clarity for my questions).

 

[aramyus]

I've never heard that parking a domain may affect future SEO ranking. I don't think it would bring any SEO benefit either.

After a while, a parked domain does not get any SEO traffic, but only referral traffic.The domain is kind of 'banned' by SE while being parked.

Parking a domain may slightly affect the perception of a buyer visiting your domain. It gives an impression of cheapness. From that respect, a real site with some content might help to sell the domain.

Then, it's purely a matter of cost/profit. Parking a domain costs nothing and the set-up time involved is marginal. Parked domains may earn very small amount of money that sometimes cover your registration fee. If you have many domains, it's good to take. If a parked domain makes a little profit, it's probably worth spending some time to create a real site instead.