Network Solutions Hosting Review – Very Popular & Should Be Avoided

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Name: Network Solutions
Plans: Shared, and VPS.
Website: www.networksolutions.com
Summary: Network Solutions is a below average host. They have a lot of issues to iron out before I can recommend them. Find out what other site owners are saying about them in this Network Solutions hosting review.

NetworkSolutions.com
{{ reviewsOverall }} / 5 Users Score (24 votes)
Overall1.4
Reliability1.5
Server Speed1.5
Customer Support1.4
Features1.4
Cost/Value1.2
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ReviewResearchInterviews

Network Solutions

Network Solution LogoNetwork Solutions has been providing domain and web hosting services since the beginning of time (in the internet world).  Chances are if you’ve been developing websites you’ve probably at one time heard of their name.  But, what are webmasters saying about their experiences with them?

They have promised their clients everything you need to get a website up and running.  No matter what you need a website for, you should be able to do it.  They offer an absolute “ton” of tools. Obviously, since they have been around for many years, they have grown in this technology era.

When I review a web hosting company, I am looking at many different things.  What features do they have to offer?  What are their performance and uptime like?  How responsive is their customer support?  And last but not least, how does their price tag compare to other web hosting providers?  I have developed a quick rating system at the top of this page which shows how I rate them on all these key areas.  So, in this full Network Solutions review, I am going to give you some reasons on why you should avoid this web hosting company.

Network Solutions Features

Network Solutions is a feature rich web hosting provider that offers either shared hosting or VPS hosting.  Not only can you buy web hosting with them you can also get a domain name, email accounts, website builders, web design, SSL, site promotion, and pretty much everything you need to start a website.  Since they are owned by the same company as Web.com (acquired in 2011), I was pretty excited to check them out!  Now, let’s take a closer look at the plans and features that they offer.

Shared Plans

Network Solutions offers five different shared hosting plans.  The prices are as follows:

  • Web Hosting – $2.99/month.
  • Web Hosting & Marketing – $3.99/month.
  • Hosting, Marketing, & Store – $4.99/month.
  • WordPress Blog Hosting – $3.85/month.
  • SharePoint Hosting – $7.74/month.

Their prices are right on par with MochaHost and iPage.

VPS Plans

VPS Plans Network Solutions

Network Solutions offers two different VPS plans.  Their prices are much higher than InterServer and GreenGeeks.  The prices are as follows:

  • Essentials – $40.00/month.
  • Professional Hosting – $80.00/month.

For their VPS plans, you can pay monthly, 1-10 years in advance.  No that is not a typo, you can pay them $7,200 for ten years of web hosting!

Email Hosting

With Network Solutions you can choose from 4 different email hosting plans.

  • Personal Email – $1.75/month.
  • Business Email – $4.99/month.
  • Mobile Email – $1.99/month (ActiveSync) or $9.99/month (BlackBerry) .
  • Microsoft Hosted Exchange – $6.99/month or $11.99/month.

I should note those prices are based on a monthly billing period for one inbox.  You can purchase up to 50 at a time.  You get a discount on cost the more you buy.

Control Panel

Network Solution Control Panel

A lot of the top web hosting services will use cPanel or Plesk for their control panel.  But, Network Solutions doesn’t follow what others are doing.  Instead, they use their custom control panel, much like DreamHost.  Network Solutions does have a ton of how-tos that show you everything you could want to know when navigating their control panel.  Their control panel will allow you to monitor your network resources, billing, scripts, etc.  From my test with their control panel, I found it pretty easy to navigate.  It’s not what I am used to, but I don’t have any real complaints with it.

Security

Anyone that has ever operated a website knows that security can sometimes be an issue once you start getting more and more traffic. The more successful you are online, the more you are prone to getting your site hacked. Network Solutions does offer a service called SiteLock which will monitor your server for any malware. They will even restore your website to a previous state if your site gets hacked on their server. To use SiteLock’s service is will cost you an extra monthly expense.

Terrible Cancellation Policy

If ever you decide to leave Network Solutions you might not want to go ahead and just cancel your account, because you will have to pay a processing fee. It is all stated in their service agreement page I am cutting and pasting what it says on their fees, payments, and terms of service.

Network Solutions will charge you a processing fee if you terminate or cancel any package prior to the completion of any limited money-back guarantee time period for that package or service (the “Processing Fee”). A Processing Fee of $34.99 will be charged for the cancellation of any one-year annual hosting, ecommerce, or Website design package. The Processing Fees for cancellation of multi-year packages will be: $34.99 per year for two-year packages, $34.99 per year for three-year packages, $22.99 per year for five-year packages and $17.99 per year for ten-year packages.

Other companies like RoseHosting and GlowHost won’t charge you a cancellation fee? I don’t understand why Network Solutions does this to their customers?

Network Solutions Performance & Uptime

Uptime

Network Solutions has a lot of uptime issues.  I’m not stating that everyone that host with them has issues, but in the past they have.  Ideally, a website should be up 99% of the time.  To monitor this, there are some website status monitoring services you can use to show you the amount of uptime you’re getting.  Granted there are times when web hosting companies will run routine maintenance, and update their hardware to the latest technology.  It wouldn’t be quite so frustrating if they abide by their uptime guarantee (like LiquidWeb and HostingSource).  However, the general feedback from Network Solution’s customers seems to point to lots of extended downtimes or none at all.  Obviously, it’s very frustrating to work on a site that is down frequently.  It wouldn’t be such an issue if you could contact Network Solutions and get your issues resolved, but later on, I will talk about their customer service, which is what breaks this company.

The research I have done on Network Solutions clearly shows that downtime is an issue.  There are lots of unhappy webmasters on various websites that are complaining about the downtime.

Performance

With the performance, you could run into some issues that seem to happen frequently.  A lot of people have reported that their servers are unstable and buggy (much like GoDaddy).  It could mean your website will run slowly, you’ll have some server errors (1 past customer complained that they had 503 errors, frequently), and of course you’re going to experience some issues with their email.  If an email were the only problem with Network Solutions, it would be easy to just use Gmail, Yahoo, or some other service, but sadly that isn’t the only problem with Network Solutions.

I have tested out their performance with isitdownrightnow.com.  Honestly, I wasn’t impressed with the results I found.  I like to test the response rate of their servers.  Typically, anything under 20 ms is fast.  21-50 ms is average.  51 of over is slow.  To my surprise, Network Solutions performance was super slow.  Network Solutions clocked in at 128.9 ms.  It is far too long!

Network Solutions Response Time

Better Business Bureau Rating?

Network Solutions BBB

One thing that just doesn’t make much sense to me is Network Solutions is accredited with the Better Business Bureau.  They have received an A+ rating.  They have been accredited since 11/3/2005.  I remember about two years ago 60 minutes did a report on the BBB.  It stated that anyone that paid could easily go from an F to an A+.  That may or may not be true, but with Network Solutions I can tell you that they have 199 complaints.

Complaints on Network Solutions

Many of the problems (100) are with “Problems with Product/Service” or (74) are “Billing/Collection Issues.”

Network Solutions Customer Support

How good is Network Solutions customer support?

On paper Network Solutions looks like they have all the customized support that you will need.  They have a toll-free number that you can call 24/7.  The there whole thing seems to pay for support that you need.  I do like the angle that they take which is one on one support (much like MDDHosting).  How this works is you set up a time for a representative to call you.  There is a 30-60 minute window in which they call.   On their website, it states, “Press 1 for hosting, 2 for sites, 3 for email, 4 for e-commerce, 5 for online marketing, 6 for mobile or 7 for all other MyTime Support requests.”  Their whole idea behind support is “personalized support,” but honestly InMotion will give you excellent support and never charge you extra!  However, there is a fee for this; it’s “starting at $59.99”.  For some of the help with Network Solutions, you can expect to pay $180!  Granted not all support is going to cost you money.  With basic stuff, you can talk to someone for free.  See screenshot below:

Network Solutions Support Prices

But, actually Network Solutions can run up your bill quickly.  Being charged for support and only having the option for telephone and email support just doesn’t cut it with me.  There is no live chat feature.  It is a big issue with me.  It’s always my preferred method of getting ahold of customer support.  When I have problems with my sites or clients sites I want to talk to someone that knows how to resolve them properly.  Sadly, this is not the case with Network Solutions.  I have spoken to them many times and while response times were quite high; the worst part is the responses you would get were almost like someone reading off a script.  Very frustrating!

One good thing I can say about Network Solutions support is they do have a lot of how-tos (Education Center) which show you how to do a lot of different tasks.  It could be anything from using your control panel, changing DNS, marketing, etc.

However, from the research I have done on Network Solutions it looks like you could have some real issues with customer support.  They have really gotten a lot of complaints on WhoIsHostingThis.com about their customer support and various other websites.

Network Solutions Hosting Review Summary

Overall, Network Solutions may not be the best option to help you attend to your e-commerce business needs although their services are far better than other options available.  Am I stating that Network Solutions is horribly bad?  No, but there are much better options out there. Online, there are quite many complaints being posted about the company. For one, some users say that their customer support sometimes doesn’t help them with their problem but only divert them to another option which doesn’t fix the problem.  You can pay more, but this runs up your bill quickly. With Network Solutions their servers are quite slow and often buggy.

I have a lot of issues with Network Solutions, and I feel they have a lot of technical issues they need to iron out.  Customer support isn’t something I could rely on for my business and thinks you’ll learn the hard way once you start using their serve.  If Network Solutions could address these major problems and fix them, I would be more than happy to reevaluate them and possibly recommend them.

I would like to hear about your experience working with Network Solutions if you have any experience working with this company.  Good or bad and I will be sure to post it.  Nevertheless, I recommend that you find another hosting company such as WebHostingHub or InMotion. Please leave your comments down below and share this Network Solution review anywhere you see fit.

Network Solutions Research.

“Positive”
“Negative”

Yelp.com

I recently Googled “Network Solutions review” and on the first page of Google I found Network Solution’s Yelp page.  I wasn’t surprised when I arrived at Yelp.com that people were exactly ranting and raving about their experiences with this company.  In fact, they were ripping them to shreds.  Out of the 75+ reviews that people left, they were giving them horrible reviews.

Some of the complaints that webmasters were complaining about are domain registration problems, new management, billing issues, confusing control panel, deceptive business practices, terrible customer service, etc.

In conclusion, Network Solutions received a 1 out of 5 stars from Yelp.com users.  It is very low and shows that people are having some major issues with their products and services.

Consumeraffairs.com

Consumer Affairs is a site that is dedicated to the consumers.  They have reviews on everything.  Could mean anything from airlines, auto dealers, cameras, doctors, health products, jewelry, online dating, pest control, weight loss programs, etc.  Also, they do have a section for the web host.  They are a credible source and show up on Google for many businesses when you Google the companies name and “reviews” after it.

People are complaining about Network Solutions, and their services left and right.  In fact, it’s hard to find someone who is praising them.  Bare in mind, that people are more apt to complain about a business rather than write them up a positive review.

But, some of the problems people are complaining about are domain name issues, customer support, email issues, suspended accounts, etc.  There are almost 40 reviews left on this site, and they did receive one out five stars from users.

WhoIsHostingThis.com

WhoIsHostingThis does review of web hosting sites, the way tbwhs.com does. They have much more customer reviews than my hosting review site has. They give a nice summary of services offered and key features at the beginning of the review, along with the cost and a ranking based on a five-point scale. A ranking of five stars is the highest score. There have been over 90+ reviews on Network Solutions, and most of them are quite negative. Here, they are reviewing Network Solutions, and these are what people are reporting.

Overall Score

The users at WhoIsHostingThis.com gives Network Solutions only two out of five stars for its web hosting service. The highest scores are only two stars for features and uptime, with one and a half for support and value.

Customer Reviews

One of the most prevalent complaints about Network Solutions is their customer service. Users said that they spent hours on the phone trying to straighten out problems to no avail. They also exchanged a lot of emails and received automated email responses. While one customer gave them a very good score for customer service, the others said that it was quite useless.

Besides, customer service is outsourced, and besides that, it’s totally useless.
Other customers complained that Network Solutions doesn’t support many WordPress sites, nor does it support the most common of site builders in use.

Technically, it takes weeks to get anything accomplished. Also, if you build sites for customers, the administration of Network Solutions won’t talk to you. They will only talk to the person who paid for the site even if they don’t know anything.  It could mean you’re in for a huge hassle if you are designing a website for a client.

Transferring domains is a similar problem, and customers report that their sites would go down, and they could not get anyone there to talk to them.

Overall, it looks like Network Solutions is a very cheap hosting provider. However, as we have learned from these reviews cheaper is not always better. A lot of times it shows that you are going to get a cheap service, but you are going to have lots of problems. The worst part seems to be dealing with Network Solutions customer support.

I should note that nearly everyone that has left feedback on Network Solutions has griped about something. They get some of the lowest ratings I have seen with any hosting company. Since the webmasters, at WhoIsHostingThis.com rate Network Solutions so low in their reviews I am adding this part to my negative section. It looks like you’re going to have a lot of problems with them based on these reviews.

WebHostingSecretRevealed.net

WebHostingSecretRevealed reviews web hosting services provided an expert review by the webmaster Jerry Low. They offer a brief summation of the service provided by a host, along with the price, link, and overall score. Their scoring system is the recognizable five-star rating system. They offer a full analysis of the host’s services, and then posts reviews by customers who have purchased the service. In this case, they have reviewed Network Solutions.

Overall Score

WHSR gives NetworkSolutions only two stars out of five. They trace the problem to the change of ownership in 2011. They were bought out by Web.com. The reviewer said that he likes the easy setup and the fact that a new account is instantly activated. You don’t have to wait for verifications, and you can upgrade from a basic package to advanced hosting.

On the other hand, the pricing is deceptive. The basic package is quite affordable, but the cost only lasts for the first 30 days. The annual rate is much higher and kicks in after the first month. There is also a lot of trouble with the server management. Customers find that there are no backups for their websites, and they don’t upgrade their servers as needed.

Customer service gets a big raspberry, as well. It is slow, at best, and the staff doesn’t know what they are doing according to most customers.

Network Solutions also upsells constantly, and charges fees for cancellation that are based on the length of your contract – the longer your contract, the higher your fee. Overall, Network Solutions gets 2 out of 5 stars. There is nothing that stands out with them. For this reason, I am filing this in my negative section for Network Solutions.

WebHostingGeeks.com

WebHostingGeeks studies and reviews web hosting sites the way tbwhs.com does. They also invite customers to enter their reviews of the service. They provide a brief outline of services provided by the web hosting service, followed by a graph of the history of service and then a summary of rankings. WebHostingGeeks.com’s uses a five-star rating for the best services, and also gives a graph representation of the number of rankings from individual customers. In this case, we’re looking at WebHostingGeeks.com’s review of Network Solutions.

Overall Score

WebHostingGeeks.com is not very impressed with Network Solutions. Or maybe I should say their customers are not impressed at all. Their overall rating is one star out of five. Tech support, software, and user friendliness all get only one star overall, and price and reliability get only one and a half stars – Network Solutions’s highest score. The vast majority of customer reviews were only one star.

Customers Say:

Customers comment on the fact that Network Solutions automatically renews your membership without permission, and won’t refund the money. The only way to turn off the auto-renew is to call on the phone because you can’t do it online. Then you still get charged for the next month. They even went so far as to go through third parties to get updated info on your credit card.

Other customers say that their web site just disappears, with all of their work dumped. One customer said he lost all of his SEO tagging, and customer service was no help at all.
WebHostingGeeks.com’s reviews warn off the customer from using Network Solutions.

But, I could spend forever going through each comment one by one and showing you what others are saying about them. However, that would take forever. Just take my word for it that there are 35 1 star reviews, 8 2 star reviews, and 2 3 star reviews. They haven’t received one 4 or 5-star review on WebHostingGeeks.com. Since they have received some of the worst feedback, I’m filing this piece of my research in my negative section.

“Neutral”

PCmag.com

PC Magazine offers a great deal of information about web hosting sites, much like tbwhs.com does. However, PCmag.com goes into much more detail concerning the hosting site and the services it offers. While it does not offer a scorecard on the web hosts it reviews, it does offer a brief summary of pros, cons, and the bottom line conclusions on the service. Here, we’ll see what PCmag.com has to say about Network Solutions.

What PCmag.com Says

PCmag.com says a lot of good things about the options and features offered by Network Solutions. There is a lot of website building software with the purchase. Their reviewers (Fahmida Y. Rashid and Jeffrey L. Wilson) say that this is a “feature-rich web hosting provider.” They also say that the creation tools are easy to use and that it provides a variety of email services.

However, PCmag.com also says that the interface is very confusing and that the email does not work on a consistent basis. This has been a known issue with Network Solutions.

Network Solutions also does not provide dedicated servers, which can be a problem for customers with traffic-heavy websites or a lot of videos or photos.

Customer service gets low points, in large part, because they are constantly upselling. The customer is first sent to the FAQ section, but several pages come up 404.

As for the cost of an account with Network Solutions, PCmag.com says that the basic package is cheap, but it gets pricey pretty quickly with the add-ons.

If you are pretty good at building your sites, this might be the way to go. Otherwise, or if you have a high traffic site, beware of increased prices.

Overall, the editors gave Network Solutions 2.5 out 5. This is considered to be “fair.” Don’t be surprised if Network Solutions tries to upsell you something if you sign up with them. Their customer support isn’t the greatest. The interface is quite hard to use as well.

Interviews with Network Solutions customers.

All content on tbwhs.com are opinions and not facts. I have thoroughly reviewed each company and then provide my personal opinions on them. It’s up to you as the consumer to do your due diligence and do more research if you feel something might be inaccurate.
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