Network Solutions vs GoDaddy or 1and1 For Small Business
Over the last 2 and a half years, I’ve had a few small business clients who have used Network Solutions for all their domain name and hosting needs. While I’m confident that Network Solutions offers excellent customer service and solid (if not spectacular) quality, I can not recommend them to small business owners as a viable option for domain purchases or web hosting services.
Please understand – if you’re looking for a high quality hosting service for your high-traffic website, or if you need a hosting company who understands big business, Network Solutions is probably worth a look. However, if you’re looking for a basic hosting and domain company with good customer service for your simple business website, Network Solutions isn’t the best option. Here’s why:
1. Network Solutions domains are overpriced. Let’s look at domain registration costs at Network Solutions and compare them to costs at some of the other registrars. We’re going to include an email account in the price:
- NetworkSolutions.com – $12 per year for a “.com” domain + $15.96 per year for an email account.
- 1and1.com – $8.99 per year for a “.com” domain + $11.88 per year for an email account.
- GoDaddy.com – $10.69 per year for a “.com” domain, but an email account is included in this price.
Clearly, GoDaddy.com is the most inexpensive option. In addition to being the best value. GoDaddy also allows businesses to re-sell their services for an even lower price. We sell domain names for less than $10.00 at SporkHosting.com (our own GoDaddy reseller company).
2. The hosting services provided by Network Solutions are also overpriced, but it’s more difficult to compare apples-to-apples. Network Solutions is famous for offering powerful servers that are always “up,” so you have to evaluate uptime when you compare Network Solutions to GoDaddy or 1and1.
- Network Solutions promises 99.99% uptime with their small shared hosting package. That means that a website hosted with Network Solutions site will be down about 53 minutes over the course of 1 year.
- GoDaddy.com and 1and1.com promise 99.9% uptime with their smallest shared hosting packages. A GoDaddy or 1and1 hosted website will be down about 9 hours over the course of 1 year.
- Keep in mind that the 99.9% is only what GoDaddy or 1and1 are willing to promise. In my experience, uptime on all of my GoDaddy powered sites runs closer to 99.99%. WebHostingStuff.com shows that GoDaddy has 99.99% uptime and that 1and1 has 99.98% uptime.
Besides, while 9 hours of downtime per year seems like a lot of time, it’s actually less than 2 minutes of downtime per day. Considering that there are 1,440 minutes in one day, that’s very, very good.
Don’t get me wrong – if you’re running Amazon.com or some other major high-traffic site, downtime is a big deal. However, for most websites, 1 or 2 minutes of downtime per day is not a problem…especially when you consider the price difference. GoDaddy or 1and1 will provide hosting for $4 a month, where NetworkSolutions costs $111.48 per year.
3. Network Solutions isn’t the only place you can get great customer service. I’ve worked with both 1and1.com and GoDaddy.com before, and both are excellent compared to other hosting companies I’ve worked with (including Verio, Hostway, and Network Solutions). GoDaddy.com in particular offers superb customer service.
4. Network Solutions isn’t developer friendly. I’m all about using a secure system, but I’m flummoxed by the fact that Network Solutions raises barriers to developers in their standard hosting packages under the guise of “security.” If you’re not a developer, you probably won’t care that Network Solutions won’t grant you full access to a SQL database. However, if you think your business might need some sort of custom web application (and a lot of companies do at some point), Network Solutions might not be your best bet. GoDaddy.com and 1and1.com are very developer friendly.
5. Network Solutions seems to prey on ignorance. In my experience with the company, I feel that Network Solutions preys upon people that don’t know a lot about the Internet, domains, and web hosting. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
Network Solutions offers a special “WordPress hosting package” that promises an easy install. This package seems like a good deal, but here’s what’s wrong with it:
- First, the way that the “free” domain name resolves almost guarantees search engines won’t index your blog. Without getting all technical, Network Solutions uses a simple forward and mask to make it look like your blog has it’s own address. However, in reality, your blog is sitting on some obscure domain like “012abc.netsolhost.com/WordPress/.” That’s a formula for SEO disaster.
- Second, the Network Solutions dedicated WordPress hosting plan does not include FTP access. FTP access – which you’ll need to host large files, upload custom theme images, etc. – is extra.
- Third, the “value” of the Network Solutions WordPress Hosting package is very limited. GoDaddy offers a free wordpress installation system with all of their hosting accounts, including their $3.99 a month economy hosting package. For roughly the same price, GoDaddy provides multiple FTP accounts, multiple SQL databases (so you can use WordPress alongside other systems), and a very decent “website tonight” template website system that’s not too bad.
In short, GoDaddy’s cheapest hosting package offers significantly more than the Network Solutions “WordPress only” package, while costing just a few dollars more.
Bottom line: Network Solutions offers great customer service and excellent quality servers, but their pricing is too high, they restrict what their customers can do, and they seem to prey upon consumer ignorance. Network Solutions isn’t alone in these practices of course, but I think all small business owners should review GoDaddy.com and 1and1.com before choosing a hosting and domain registration company.
Comments
Shashi Bellamkonda Dec 14th, 2009
Hi Jason,
I stopped by to let you know that your feedback on Network Solutions is read. As a progressive company we welcome feedback that will help us in our goal to help Small Business succeed.I agree that Small business owners should review all their options and choose their provider carefully and should consider that Network Solutions is very competitive in service and customers get domain names free with annual hosting making the price competitive. I will pass this post on to our product team as feedback from a customer.
Thanks,
Shashi
admin Dec 20th, 2009
Shashi – Thanks.
Mark Jan 1st, 2010
you neglected to mention how hard it is to work with the netsol website for maintenance of your sites.
the netsol website is in constant sales mode.
admin Jan 2nd, 2010
Mark – Good point. Thanks for chiming in.
Jason Lancaster Jan 4th, 2010
Hi Jason. Just wanted to chime in from a developers perspective. I’m personally against all three. In my experience, all have been plagued by reliability problems, typically (but not only) the “oh your memory was sucked up by a rogue site reboot” where you can never get any more information about what happened.
As you said, nwsol isn’t very developer friendly but all of them are “fluffy” service providers offering loads of crap in an interface that is all too cumbersome. Take 1and1′s domain management — it’s an exercise in what the web looked like in ’99.
Anyway, all that to say I trend to the simplest of all hosting plans on the most reliable and easily scalable of hosting companies, like Rackspaces cloud hosting: http://www.rackspacecloud.com/
Everyone has their favorite, of course… but I’ve never heard a peep from anyone I’ve turned away from the big two, nwsol or godaddy.
-The other Jason!
admin Jan 4th, 2010
Jason – First of all, great name!
We need to go to lunch sometime since we have the same name and work in the same industry.
As for your comments, you’re absolutely right I think. I struggle with kookey rules that GoDaddy and 1and1 setup, and I’m always wondering if my hosting provider is the cause of an error.
I’ve never used Rackspace, but I haven’t ever heard anything bad about them. I think developers are wise to use them, but I have the same cost concerns for small business owners. Many of my clients need nothing more than an online brochure, so I think GoDaddy is appropriate.
I like your analogy about 1and1′s domain management system – UGLY.
Thanks for commenting.
Russ Jan 5th, 2010
Netsol from my experience is good, but you do need to jump through to many hoops. I am well established with them and have been for years, while I know that they have problems I am sadly a loyal user of NetSol.
Network Solutions please do not test me in this because you will lose a long term customer. I understand that internet programming and site building is a difficult thing and all these companies must offer a simplistic solution for the bulk of users. Unfortunately that leaves us in a cloud of unneeded bulky overhead that slows us down and restricts our progress and ingenuity.
So I understand you Netsol, But I don’t have to like it. And let this be a warning to all of you providers, not adequately accommodating us professional users will be your demise, as one by one more flexible power user friendly services will be created by guess who? That’s right! us, those who you finally cracked and cause to created something better. Sadly these too shall likely follow the path of money and become as you, such as Google.
admin Jan 5th, 2010
Russ – Thanks for commenting. I’m guessing that you’ve been a Netsol consumer for a while – have they always been this way?
I know of a few loyal Netsol fans who have more years of experience than myself, and they feel the way that you do. Wondering if perhaps Netsol has “evolved.”
Alex Jan 18th, 2010
I have a network solutions account that allows me to host multiple domaines without an extra charge.
I also created a go daddy account. They allow me to host more than one account but place there adds on top and bottom.
Am I missing something? Or does network solution work better for a multiple domaine owner?
admin Jan 20th, 2010
Alex – There’s a difference between hosting and domain registration. GoDaddy provides “free” hosting on any domain name that you register with them, but the “free” hosting has ads at the top and bottom of the page. It’s not a workable solution for a business.
The paid hosting from GoDaddy is much less expensive than the paid hosting from Network Solutions, however you might have received a special offer not shown on their website that I don’t know about. Can you leave a link?
Alex Jan 21st, 2010
Thanks. It looks like I just did not understand there directory structure. Looking at it now I see how to create another directory and link it to another web site. I will have to play with it a bit more to get use to the differences.
I do have Unlimited Hosting from godaddy – Linux – 4 years
John Dec 9th, 2010
Be warned!!! Go Daddy is the worst hosting company ever. Read the reviews on the internet. They tried to extort me of $199 or shut down my website for sending too many emails to my customers. This is a warning.
admin Dec 9th, 2010
John – Sending emails from a shared hosting account isn’t a best practice because many shared hosts are not white-listed. There’s a good chance that the emails you sent from GoDaddy never made it past a spam filter.
As for GoDaddy being the worst hosting company, I respectfully disagree. While I have had my share of frustrations with them, there are two points that I always fall back to:
1. They’re incredibly affordable by any standard.
2. They have very good customer service.
I’ve used quite a few hosts in the past above and beyond those listed in this article and I’ve found GoDaddy to be about as good as you could expect for the money. They’re not great, but they’re certainly not the worse IMHO.
Thanks for commenting
Jeevan Feb 23rd, 2011
Hey Admin, are you a GoDaddy rep?
admin Feb 23rd, 2011
Jeevan – LOL, no. I like them better than Network Solutions by a large margin, but GoDaddy isn’t my favorite.
I find myself recommending HostGator to a lot of people…very happy with their service overall but performance could be better.
I’m also using a KnownHost virtual dedicated server and it’s quite good.
Joshua Jun 18th, 2011
Godaddy is awful, esp from a customer service perspective. I need to run off php5.3 during cron jobs and their customer reps (I spoke with about 6 over a long period and traded emails with 3) have no idea how to interpret the question without extensive explanation, or make it happen. (note – you have to include an addhandler command in .htaccess in your root directory to access php5.3 for calls from a browser – this works perfectly). Therefore if you are a dev be warned. I just cancelled my hosting account after a long battle to get them to tell me the path to use in the cron call to access php5.3 instead of php circa 2006 that they default you to. They couldn’t do it
admin Jun 18th, 2011
Joshua – It’s funny, but most of my interactions with GoDaddy customer service have been good. Still, I agree that they often don’t respond well to technical requests. I’ve stopped recommending them for hosting – just domains.
Roy Dec 14th, 2011
Who *DO* you recommend these days for hosting of a Microsoft based web site? Hostgator seems to just do Linux and the enterprise-looking providers for the MSFT world appear to be Network Solutions & GoDaddy, neither of which leaves me with a warm and fuzzy feeling.
In case you are wondering, I’m trying to host a small family business web site.
admin Dec 14th, 2011
Roy – Well, I don’t have a good recommendation for a web host running Windows. Rackspace is awesome – top notch – but they charge a pretty penny. Verio offers windows hosting too, but I have a gripe with them and therefore refuse to endorse them (LOL).
No offense, but why Windows? In my experience, the only reason to run a Windows host is “because I have to” – I have yet to meet a developer that enjoys that platform outside of some corporate IT office.
Eric Jan 23rd, 2012
For someone like myself looking to mount a small NGO website rather quickly, and who needs to secure 2 domain names and have a hosting solution of low to medium bandwidth usage, what do you recommend? I prefer easy to configure, easy to setup and publish a website – no complex databse needs. The site is a frontend explaining the goal of the organization, with a few links and a page to contact us, so nothing complex, just a few banners and graphics and drop down menus.
admin Jan 23rd, 2012
Eric – I’m a fan of HostGator, BlueHost, and A Small Orange, but it sounds like you need more than hosting. You might see if there’s a web development/design company willing to render services to your nonprofit at low cost and/or free.
Shah Feb 10th, 2012
Hi.Jason
my site is hosted by microsoft and they are teling meto transfer to office365. What are my best options? please help.
Shah – Canada
Firewifer Feb 25th, 2012
I have office365 and it works well for microsoft products. I also am a longtime account holder in hosting and domain with netsol. My website was perged when I failed to pay them the due date, which went before the perging time frame and I was terribly upset. 9 years of work out the window even though I had back up on discs that was about it (as the newbie I was in 1999). I really wasn’t happy. On the same hand as only having html and xhtml on my belt, I did quite well working with them in building my pages and getting things done. I believe the problem was half my fault as I didn’t pay the due date, however I was having radiation, very ill, and my husband failed to pay them, and they refused to help me pull it back after the so many days had reached, when it was supposed to be longer. I am currently looking for the best suit to my new business, 1. domain purchasing of 5 or more, and then either transferring them or using the hosting packages on the company if it’s worthy and cheaper. Granted, perging wont happen again.. I’m still shell shocked!!! thanks, Firewifer
Firewifer Feb 25th, 2012
PS – who knows the best people to follow on SEO and 101 advice boards? I’m also interested in a convention even though I know it’s costly. As far as my domain names, some will be dns pointed, some will be parked but only 3 will be leading hosts. thanks again!!!
admin Feb 26th, 2012
Firewifer – I think there are a lot of hosting companies who delete old data automatically, but I can’t think of many hosting companies that don’t send you multiple notices first…hopefully Network Solutions tried to notify you a few times.
As far as great SEO advice, SEOMoz is an excellent resource. They have a beginner’s guide that is a must-read for anyone who is curious about SEO, and they have a couple of blogs worth following too.
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