Network Solutions

Network Solutions is useful for building a website. Protecting your domain. Do it yourself management and set up. This would not be useful if you are using Squarespace or a similar product the costs do not line up.

My experience with using Network Solutions hasn't been great. At best, it has almost feature parity with its competitors at a higher price. But when you tack on all the minor annoyances of being given interstitial ads for their other products or discount offers when logging in or performing a transfer, the all too common bugs where a feature doesn't work, and in my experience support takes at least a half-hour to understand your problem before even attempting to fail at a resolution. It just isn't worth it in my opinion. Go with a service with better support, features, security, and lower price.

If you know what you are doing with free open source website building applications and need no help, Network Solutions is a good place to look. If you have an Etsy shop or SmugMug account and you want to have a domain name that points to those locations, Network Solutions Web Forwarding is a cost effective easy solution. If you need email for your domain name that is reliable, Network Solutions has a solid product.

The backend for managing your domain is very easy to work thru once you learn where everything is and what it is for if you want to do it yourself. The company has toll free phone support 24/7 that can also make changes for you if you are away from your desktop or have an emergency situation where you can't make the change yourself. This is peace of mind knowing that there is help out there should you need it. You don't have to learn the backend if you want to have the Network Solutions customer support team help you. They are secure and won't make changes for anyone who calls, they authenticate you for your protection every time.

For the most part I've had excellent interactions with the customer support team I've dealt with at Network Solutions. When I've needed help with something like Wordpress, it hasn't always worked out so well but you can pay their techs for 1 on 1 help with these offerings, you just won't have the support for free. I've often been talked to on upsells for services that I particularly didn't need and found the offers to be annoying when the agents kept pushing me on an upsell instead of addressing my issue. It's hit or miss on that, perhaps it depends on the department you speak with.

I have yet to find a situation where Network Solutions would be the best solution. Their customer support is severely lacking, their prices do not appear to be as low as other more known DNS registrars, their webpage to manage your account needs a complete overhaul, and documentation on their website (for configuration explanations) is sparse.

Based on my experiences with Network Solutions, I would not recommend any of their services at this time. I know of no specific issues with domain registration, so if the cost comparison makes sense, then perhaps it would be reasonable to buy domains from them, but be beware of the introductory price and know what you'll be paying for it in the long term when you price compare.