Web.com Comparison and Review

Pros:

• Large number of templates available
• Free one-year registration of a .com

Cons:

• High monthly cost
• No free trial available to test the service
• Limited flexibility of website builder
• Poor/minimal guidance for website creation
• Can't drag and drop content
• No ability to accept online payments with this plan
• Although the first year of domain registration is free, Web.com charges $38.00/ year to renew the domain, which is excessive

Conclusion:

While Web.com provides decent customer service support, their builder is difficult to edit and their pricing is more expensive than other website builders. Familiarizing yourself with Web.com's website builder is harder than most because their builder possesses an unintuitive interface. These problems do not justify Web.com's promotional price of $1.95 for the first month that increases to $22.95 after that .

Ease of Use

Web.com's Website Builder plan received 2 out of 5 stars for Ease of Use. The website builder provides a low level of guidance and we experienced some difficulty while trying to navigate the software. Web.com does not provide a setup wizard or introduction to guide you through the initial process of creating your website. You are able to directly edit content blocks within their builder, but you cannot simply drag and drop blocks with your mouse to change their positioning, which makes for a rather inflexible editor. Whereas most builders allow you to click on an icon that will add a movable content block to your template, Web.com complicates the task: you have to go to an edit page where you choose how many blocks you want to add and then update your template. Images are added in the same way that you'd add a content block, and Web.com provides 1000's of stock images for placement if you don't want to upload your own.

Web.com provides over 2,500 templates you can choose from and customize to create your website. You can edit the HTML code of particular content blocks for more customization and control over the look of your site. Web.com allows you to insert your site title, description, keywords, and metatags for the purpose of optimizing your sites for search engines. The builder also supports Flash.  

Customer Support

Web.com received 3 out of 5 stars for Customer Support. Phone support is available Monday through Friday from 8a.m. to 8p.m. EST. During testing, we found their phone support to be of very high quality due to their staff correctly answering each test question we posed regarding their service. Web.com also provides email support but does not offer a live chat support option. Overall customer support is of average quality. Though they provide  FAQs and tutorials, Web.com does not provide the user forums and searchable knowledgebases seen on many competitors' websites.

Account Features

Web.com includes an unlimited number of email accounts associated with your domain (i.e. youname@yourdomain.com) with your monthly hosting payment. Web.com also provides one $50 credit for Facebook Ads and a $50 credit for Google Adwords so that you can start promoting your site. For $1.95 per month, you can purchase Privacy Protection from the WHOIS database, a publicly searchable database that contains information like your name, address, telephone number, and email address. When you purchase Privacy Protection, Web.com will replace your information in the WHOIS database with their own in order to protect you from unwanted marketing, spam, and identity theft.

Pricing

Web.com Website Builder  charges a promotional price of $1.95 for the first month and then  increases to $22.95 per month. A domain registration is included with your monthly hosting fee. You do not have to sign up for a full year of service like you would with many other competitors. Web.com does not offer you a free trial or free account to test their service before committing to payment.

Upgrades

Web.com also offers additional plans ranging from $32.95 to $114.95 per month that provide you with e-commerce tools if you need more functionality.