Using free webhosting with custom domain

I'm using a free webhosting service with my own domain name. But will using this webhosting that many other people use for free (maybe spammers use it as well), will my search engine rankings be affected or should I go ahead and get a paid host?

Bump. Anyone know whether using a free host affects your search engine rankings?

A free host should not affect your rankings.

According to Matt Cutts:

Someone asked about this, so here's a quick one. It's fine to run your website off your home DSL, as long as you configure your webserver correctly. This is an extension of the "virtual hosting vs. dedicated IP doesn't matter" idea. As long as Google can load your web pages, it doesn't really make a different whether the pages load in half a second or 5 seconds.

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That being said, free hosting could hose you in other, less obvious ways. Your page is likely to be slow, which will cut down on legitimate backlinks, because people will bounce more. Also, free hosts are notorious for cutting sites off that they consider "resource hogs", meaning that just as your hard work is paying off, they will cap your site, and then nobody, not even spiders, will get in.

Read the terms of service really carefully, and keep on eye on your stats. The moment that you have banked enough, I would move to paid hosting.

Best of luck!

Really great advice in your post Matt. I've decided to just get HostGator since they are cheap and people have said that Google likes HostGator.

H0stGat0r is great, IMO, as far as the reasonably priced hosting goes.

I'm glad I could help!

Matt Cutts is awesome, i love his blog - seriously give it a read sometime, read the SEO section - He's the team leader of the spam team at Google. You will learn some seriously helpful things. I read his RSS feed everyday and everyday i learn something new pretty much.

And to answer your question, i dont really have much experience with shared hosting, but you really should buy a hosting package, even if its jsut a cheap one! that way, theres a lot less than can gowrong.

My site is always down with the freehost I got, its such a pain