Web.com

Two departments passed the buck back and forth for weeks claiming "not my job". I have now been waiting for over a month to publish my site, because the engineers have failed to do their job by the "worst case scenario deadline" on an issue that they've known about for several months?! Is it really too much to ask for people to do their jobs? How about providing a status update when requested once every couple of weeks or an ETA of completion? This current issue does not just impact me. There are many who are impacted. They are, ultimately, negatively affecting all of our livelihoods.

In the past month since we took over the CPC went from $15 to $3 and our Organic and Local results have skyrocketed. Never would have imagined that Web.com was so poor. It looks like they have real amateurs actually managing everything. And the price was no joke either, At 5K each a month we are getting these companies SOOOO Much More Bang for their Buck. We will be searching for other companies that have had poor experiences with this company for sure!

I could say a whole lot more...as we feel the only expertise we received were the experts would took our $4,500 and failed at everything else. On our last call we were told that our leads didn't have to be quality leads...just leads...sorry but someone calling us trying to sell us something...or looking for their apartment complex manager is not a lead. A lead is someone looking for the services you provide. We asked for a refund and what was offered was an insult.

Well I was going to show a customer how my site ranked organically both one that I manage (web design portion) and the one they created and host. Well the one they created did not show up in the nine pages of Google at all. When searching for my business name I was wondering what was going on so I took a look at my site's control code meta information and realized it was set to no index. Well let's explain what indexing is, indexing tells search engines (aka Google) if it is okay to rank your site in the non-local listings, a web designer uses this function when a site is not ready for ranking or under construction. Well this tells me that before they packaged up my site they switched the index to no index thus creating a problem of lost revenue and lost contract.

Do not give them your credit card information to let them automatically charge you monthly, because you can never cancel the auto pay. Even when you change or cancel services. Supervisors refuse to speak to you, and you will be on hold and transferred over and over until you finally get the "We are currently closed, call back during normal business hours". I finally had to cancel my card and ALL my services so they couldn't continue fraudulently billing me. RUN. Your business is too important to rely on this company.

After getting frustrated with their DIY tools, I let a Web.com sales talk me into their "Build It For You" services (because you can't contact Web.com's support without them trying to up-sell you on something). $200/mo later, they gave me what the equivalent of what I did with their DIY templates. I've never felt so shafted. Honestly, I think their staff uses the same website builder to "build a site for you" that you would use to build it yourself. If you actually want a professional site built for you (and not with some crummy template builder), go with SetMySite - they actually lived up to our expectations.

But that's not the worst part of Web.com. Beyond the terrible tools, novice designers, and poor customer service, their billing is incredibly SNEAKY. They say "monthly" charges, but you're actually charged every 4 weeks. So instead of getting billed 12 times a year, they bill you 13 times a year. And it can be very difficult to stop their billing once they start. After I canceled, they billed me for 2 more months (8 more weeks) even after repeatedly calling them to cancel my service. Stay away from Web.com. It's a lose lose situation. No matter what option you pick, it's the same bad results with headaches along the whole way.

I quickly began to discover, however, that this organization is designed to prey upon people who don't know very much about SEO. Here is a tip. Whenever some salesperson tells you that he or she can "get you on the first page of Google" you need to run the other direction. That statement is so horribly wrong and incomplete and unfair and such general gibberish that it should be illegal.

You need to understand that there is a "first page of Google" for every possible search you can imagine. That means there is an infinity of "first pages of Google". The first question to this nonsense claim should be, "which of the infinity of possible first pages of Google" are you promising me? Is this a promise to appear on the first page of Google when someone searches for "wine that tastes like cat urine"? Is it promising to appear on the first page of Google on that phrase wherever someone happens to be while searching Google, or only in Cincinnati, or only in New York City? These are all different things.

And let's pretend that you have some particularly favorable phrase someone actually promises to get you on the "first page of Google". There are two basic ways to get you there. The first is naturally, or organically, and the second is by simply buying their way in through the Adwords system. Organic results are free but require (for competitive phrases and markets) long term planning and development of content for websites and the building of good links to the content that take time. This is impossible to do overnight.

Adwords is fast...but expensive. Places like Web.com can get you an Adwords ad that is placing you on the "first page of Google" within hours of paying them. But...and here is what they don't really tell you...you will pay through the roof for the privilege. And they will not advise you up front about the enormous pay per click costs if you are in a highly competitive market. In my market, $75 per CLICK was the going rate for many of the key phrases that the person who set up our account made part of our campaign. When I discovered this (only because I had the familiarity with this world enough to know how to poke through the data) I at first decided to let it ride assuming again that they were the pros and knew how to generate clients for me. I don't care how much the clicks cost if ultimately I make the money back and then some in business.

But then I noticed in reviewing the stats that probably 0.1% of their clients even know exist, let alone know how to interpret, that many of the clicks on the super expensive phrases were coming from New Jersey. Now for most businesses this wouldn't be a problem. In my case, I am a lawyer, and my law firm is not licensed to practice in New Jersey. We specifically advised our account set up person that we wanted to exclude New Jersey from our campaign. Not done. And as far as I could tell we never were credited for the expensive clicks from geographic areas we specifically excluded upfront.

And had I not had the understanding to check on it, I never would have known what was happening. The account set up person also set up our "custom site" (which would serve as the landing pages for our Adwords ads) with a domain name that did not spell the word "defense" (we are a criminal defense firm) correctly. That was embarrassing.

Run carefully, an Adwords campaign doesn't have to be insanely expensive. But it requires careful planning and discussion and thinking about exactly the key phrases to target and it requires careful planning about the landing page where the ad sends people. I just kept telling myself that these people must be pros and that they must know something that I don't know because their seemingly cookie cutter template driven crap landing pages looked like garbage to me. I didn't want to believe that it was exactly what it seemed - a bunch of crap. I kept wanting to believe there was some method to the madness and I was just not sophisticated enough to see the genius of it.

In discussions with the account managers who had varying levels of understanding of SEO and Adwords, it blew me away that I never was put in touch with a real honest to goodness SEO engineer or Adwords engineer to actually plan out the campaign or to address my concerns as it became more and more obvious what a preposterous disaster Web.com is.

So we got some calls from people who were not even potential clients with other types of problems than what we could help them with and we ended up with one actual new client. That one case recouped about 1/3 of our cost for the three month program cost. So it was a waste. They will say no doubt that it was our fault because we didn't stick it out in their ridiculous incompetent absence of a planned campaign.

Oh, and another trick of theirs was to try to take control of the Google My Business page. They do this because if they take control of it, they then claim responsibility for leads that it generates, even though they have nothing to do with the Google My Business page. I spent months adding content to my Google My Business page and doing what was necessary to optimize it for appearance in the search results on several phrases of relevance to me, and then suddenly I noticed that in the reports they provided, they were acting as if leads generated by Google My Business were somehow "their" work. I think not. As soon as I noticed that, I went into my account and regained control of the Google My Business site.

Here is my assessment of what Web.com is all about: Their business model is that they don't care how much money of yours they will spend in Adwords campaigns. They will dump you into a massively overspent campaign figuring that you may some new business or just enough new business to keep you in the game. What you need to know is that if you are making money through Web.com Adwords campaign, you could probably be making quite a bit more by having someone manage your Adwords budget who gave a damn how much you spent.

Imagine going into a gambling casino and just putting bets down on everything everywhere. You might end up making money sometimes. But it is insane and unlikely to work in the long run. But in a big world, Web.com has lots of other people to milk. They probably see new clients as cows to milk for a while until the luck runs out. That's what the Web.com approach to Adwords seems like to me. They are a well oiled marketing machine but they are short on an actual product. I would be willing to wager that this business is filled with marketing people but that the people who run the show on the technical side are few and far between.

That would explain why I spoke with so many different people in different marketing roles (the cold caller, the pitch person, the setup person, and the account manager). None of the marketing people really know much about SEO or Adwords. They were nearly universally stumped when I used any technical terms associated with SEO or Adwords. You would think that this would have resulted in putting me in touch with a more technically savvy person. But no. Probably because there are only five of them for the whole company or something. This company is all about marketing, and not so much about the tech.

This was an eye opening experience for me. I always assumed that these big Adwords companies knew what they were doing and did it so much better. They don't. At least Web.com doesn't. I didn't make huge ROI on my own, but I made more than I spent every month by a long shot. These people are a disaster. Don't listen to their nonsense about the first page of Google. Maybe there are Adwords businesses out there that do a good job and aren't designed simply to take the most money from you in the shortest amount of time. Web.com is not one of them.

A few days later, I get a preview website. I was incredibly dismayed at the quality of the website. It looked like it took 10 minutes to put together. The copy was just generic stuff, seemingly copy and pasted from whatever copy template they had lying around. They included the old "Experience you can trust!" headline at top. The pictures on the service pages had nothing to do with the services offered. The location of my business was wrong.

Ok, fast forward to them "working with me". I had sent a lengthy email stating the changes I'd like for the site. Basically, no changes were made except swapping their pictures for the pictures I included in the email. But, even that was bad, because on the landing page photo, they cropped out the piece of equipment that represents what my business offers.

I get them on the phone, and they basically tell me that I'll never get the changes I requested. They also let me know that it's not really a website, it's a lead generation site. And that some people use it as their secondary site. I didn't believe I was signing up for that. I don't want my primary site to be someone else's secondary site.

So, less than a week in, I ask to cancel. Sure, I could cancel, but they'd still get to keep all the money I gave them. I asked if they can just keep the money for the website, return me money for the SEO. No, they say. Can I speak to someone in a higher authority to explain the situation? No, they say. So, I have no recourse. I feel scammed.

I had a SEO service work on our site and we received 125+ clicks and website visits in 1 day. MailChimp will do what Web.com/Leadstream did in 1/10 of the time and at 100% of the cost! MAILCHIMP IS FREE! They prey on hard working small business. THERE IS NO RETURN ON YOUR INVESTMENT. Save your hard earned money and work with MailChimp or a reputable SEO service.

Customer Service: HORRIBLE - It would take DAYS AND DAYS to get in touch with someone anytime I had a quick question. You call, and you get passed around from agent to agent and no one actually knows what they're talking about. I wish I could just speak to a person with some competence! They cannot be contacted and won't respond to my emails. Very unprofessional. Design: NOT GOOD AT ALL - Some of the templates are OK, but as soon as you want to do some very basic and minor customization to them, they essentially fall apart and look like they were made by a 8 year old. Billing: UNSCRUPULOUS AND IMMORAL - It's nearly impossible to cancel your account. On top of that they say you'll be charged one rate, but when you check your bill, you've been duped! You're paying more than you thought with no explanation as to why your costs went up.

Recommendation: DO NOT USE! They are one of the worst possible companies you can work with and they are only in it to swindle as much money from you as they can. They have no interest in helping your company. We now use SetMySite for our website and they are incredible. If you're like me and you want someone else to handle the website design and hosting and maintenance, SetMySite is the answer. If you're more interested in saving a little money and just using a template and using a do-it-yourself service that doesn't treat their clients like garbage, my friend uses Squarespace and she loves the templates and support. All in all, don't be like me. Read the reviews first and inform yourself! Choose a service that treats their customers well and cares about the product they're selling.

The truth is that they have no SEO specialists etc, all lies. All you are essentially paying for is to be on their database. The ex employee then told me they don't even do SEO...they also use 'scare tactics' to pressure customers into paying i.e 'your website will be taken down from google if you don't renew your contract'. Emma was clearly attempting to 'scare' me but obviously failed hence why she hung up on me. It all seems like a big scam to be honest...so done with this company. Seriously consider sending your staff on a customer service training course.