Dedicated website hosting exists when a company hosts only your website on a single computer (server). Most web hosting is shared, with hundreds or even thousands of websites residing on a single computer. The advantage of a dedicated server is obvious. If only your site is hosted, you will have all of the computer’s resources dedicated to running your site. It will run faster and will likely be running in a more secure environment. With dedicated hosting you will have:

• A massive amount of storage space for your website
• High bandwidth for millions of hits per day
• A high level of technical support
• The ability to install your own proprietary or specialized software
• Complete control over the server configuration
• A high level of security necessary for large ecommerce sites

However, dedicated website hosting is much more expensive than basic hosting and you may have to spend a lot of money for their technicians to install and configure your software. If you think you may require a dedicated solution, it is imperative that you research your hosting provider thoroughly before committing. The number of customers, experience in the industry, quality of their data center and quality of their computer hardware and software are just some of the things to consider.