We tried this ourselves and after a bit of fiddling around we got it to work OK although for some reason, initially we could not get the domain name to work and only by typing the IP address into the browser could we view the webpage. Then, without changing anything, the site started to load OK. We only uploaded a simple lead capture page for testing purposes and the biggest problem was that the page was sometimes very slow to load indeed. This could be for a number of reasons but the DYNDNS service seems the obvious culprit in view of the fact that the IP address loaded fine.

If all you want to host is a simple webpage or site, this solution could be worth it for you. Remember that it means you will have to have your PC and internet connection running 24/7 so that people can access your site. There is no reason you cannot use this process to host your pages yourself, although some ISP’s don’t allow it so you need to know where your access provider stands on such issues.

We would not necessarily recommend hosting your primary website in this way, it has several drawbacks, but having your own server for testing purposes is a useful tool to have, so installing Apache or perhaps something like XAMPP which includes Apache, PHP and MySQL is cool if you want to do a lot of testing of sites as you build them. Also, the technical barriers for many non technical minded users can give you a lot of headaches and you might be better advised to find a simple free hosting service if your site/pages are simple and not mission critical.

Whilst the instructions given are pretty clear, if you would like a good reference for setting up a server on your home PC one of the best publications out there at the time of writing is Setting Up A Web Server – How To Host Your Website From Home which will give you everything you need to know and costs less than $16.00. It also includes a piece of troubleshooting software to make life easier if you should run into any problems.

If you can follow the instructions in the video below and don’t have any problems, all well and good. Enjoy, you could soon be hosting your own website from your own home PC! For more comprehensive help the above mentioned product will be of immense help – following the instructions in the video will not necessarily work for everyone because of all the variables involved and then you can experience all kinds of frustrations!!

How to host a Web server, Web page server from your home PC. website Using free programs from Apache and DYNDNS.