Network Solutions is a domain registrar and web services company that helps individuals and businesses establish an online presence. Established in 1979, it holds the distinction of being the world’s first domain registrar, and it has since expanded into website hosting, website building, security products, and digital marketing services. If you’ve come across the name while shopping for a domain or looking for web hosting, here’s what the company actually offers.
Domain Registration
Domain registration is the service Network Solutions is best known for. You can search for and purchase domain names across a wide range of extensions, including .com, .org, .net, .io, .biz, .co, and others. A .com domain starts at around $25 per year, with renewal rates in the same range.
Every domain registration includes DNSSEC, a security feature that helps prevent attackers from redirecting visitors to fake versions of your website. Domain privacy protection, which hides your personal contact information from the public WHOIS directory, is free for the first year but costs extra after that. Depending on the domain extension, that runs roughly $4 to $5 per month or about $10 per year.
Website Builder and Hosting
Beyond selling domain names, Network Solutions offers tools to build and host websites. The website builder is aimed at small business owners and non-technical users who want to get a site up without hiring a developer. It provides templates you can customize with your own text, images, and branding.
For users who need more flexibility, the company also sells traditional web hosting plans. These give you server space to run a website built on platforms like WordPress or custom code, along with professional email addresses tied to your domain name.
Security Products
Network Solutions sells several layers of security on top of its core domain and hosting services. SSL certificates, which encrypt data between your website and your visitors’ browsers, start at $76.89 per year on a two-year contract. If you run an e-commerce site or collect any kind of personal information, an SSL certificate is essentially a requirement.
The company also offers website security plans starting at $7.99 per month. These plans include daily malware scans covering up to 500 pages, automatic malware removal if anything is detected, and daily vulnerability scans that check for weaknesses hackers could exploit. These add-ons are optional but worth considering if you don’t have another security solution in place.
Digital Marketing Services
One area where Network Solutions differs from many competing registrars is its managed digital marketing services. Rather than just selling you a domain and hosting, the company offers hands-on help with growing your online visibility. These services include search engine optimization (SEO) to help your site rank higher in Google results, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns that put targeted ads in front of potential customers, and local business listings management to make sure your company shows up correctly across online directories.
The company also has an in-house content team that can write website copy, blog posts, SEO-optimized landing pages, and ad copy. This is geared toward small business owners who don’t have the time or expertise to produce their own marketing content. Performance reporting and analytics come alongside these services so you can see what’s working.
Who Network Solutions Is For
Network Solutions positions itself as a one-stop shop for small businesses and entrepreneurs who want to handle their entire web presence through a single provider. Instead of buying a domain from one company, hosting from another, and hiring a freelance marketer separately, you can bundle everything under one account with 24/7 customer support.
That convenience comes with trade-offs. Network Solutions tends to price its services higher than budget-focused competitors, and add-on costs for privacy protection, SSL certificates, and security plans can add up. If you’re comfortable managing multiple vendors and want the lowest possible price on each individual service, you may find better deals elsewhere. But if you value simplicity and prefer having a support team handle technical details, the bundled approach can save you time and headaches.
Fortune 500 companies and small businesses both use Network Solutions, though the company’s marketing services and website builder tools are most clearly tailored to smaller operations that lack dedicated IT or marketing staff.