When a customer on your reseller plan says their website is slow, work out where the time goes before you change anything: on the server building the page, or in the browser downloading it. This guide gives resellers a short, repeatable order for checking a customer's account from WHM or DirectAdmin, and tells you when to bring the problem to Domain India.
Measure the slow page first, then open the customer's own control panel from your reseller panel and check its resource usage for faults. Most slow sites come down to heavy plugins, slow database queries, external calls without timeouts, or pages with oversized images and no caching. Fix those before you move the customer to a bigger package, and open a ticket with us if several of your accounts slow down at once.
This page is the reseller's checklist. The full diagnosis, with TTFB, plugin testing, external calls and page weight explained step by step, is in My website is slow. Send your customers there too.
1. Get the details from your customer
Ask for the exact page address, when the slowness started, whether it affects every page or only some (checkout, search, the admin area), any error message word for word, and anything that changed recently: a new plugin, a theme update, a PHP version change or a marketing campaign. This tells you where to start and gives you a "before" to compare against.
2. Measure the slow page
Run the page through PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) or WebPageTest, two or three times. The key number is time to first byte (TTFB):
| What you see | Likely cause |
|---|---|
| Slow TTFB on every page | Server-side work: PHP, database, plugins or the account's resource limits |
| Slow TTFB on some pages only | One slow query, plugin or external call on those pages |
| Fast TTFB, slow full load | Page weight: images, scripts, no caching |
| Slow for one visitor only | Their network, or a firewall block on their IP |
From a terminal you can check TTFB with curl:
curl -o /dev/null -s -w 'TTFB: %{time_starttransfer}s Total: %{time_total}s\n' https://customerdomain.com/On our cPanel servers, nginx caches successful pages in front of Apache for up to 120 minutes, so a cached home page can look fast while uncached pages are slow. Add ?t= and any text to the address to test what the server returns right now.
3. Check the customer's resource usage
Every account on our cPanel and DirectAdmin servers runs on CloudLinux with its own share of CPU, memory, disk I/O and simultaneous PHP processes. When a site needs more than its share, it slows down or returns a 503 or 508 error.
- Open the customer's panel.In WHM, go to List Accounts and open the customer's cPanel. In DirectAdmin, use List Users and Impersonate the customer.
- Open Resource Usage.In cPanel it is under Metrics › Resource Usage. Look at the faults column: it shows when the account hit a limit.
- Read the pattern.Faults at busy times with high CPU point to heavy code or traffic. Faults while CPU and memory stay low usually mean PHP processes waiting on something slow, often an outside service.
As a reseller you manage your customers' accounts, not the server, so you won't see server-wide load or other resellers' accounts. That is on our side. For the error itself, see Understanding the "Resource Limit Is Reached" error and checking hosting resource usage.
4. Fix the usual causes
- Heavy plugins. Install Query Monitor on a WordPress site to find the slowest queries and the plugins behind them, then deactivate suspects one at a time on a staging copy.
- Slow database queries. Clean up autoloaded options, old revisions and expired transients, with a fresh backup first. See diagnosing and fixing slow MySQL queries.
- External calls without timeouts. A payment, SMS or shipping API with no timeout holds a PHP process while it waits. Set short connect and total timeouts, and cache results.
- Old PHP. Move the account to the newest PHP 8 version the site supports, then test key pages. OPcache is covered in the PHP OPcache guide.
- Heavy pages. Resize and compress images, lazy-load images further down the page, remove unused scripts and fonts, and add one page-caching plugin.
Domain India shared hosting runs the Apache web server, not LiteSpeed, so LiteSpeed Cache won't do its job here. Use WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache on WordPress, and keep only one page-caching plugin active. Redis and Memcached object caches are not available on shared plans.
5. When to upgrade the customer's package
Move a customer to a bigger package only when Resource Usage still shows regular faults after the fixes above, or when their traffic has genuinely grown. A site waiting on a slow outside service stays slow on any package. If your whole reseller plan is running short, you can upgrade it too: see upgrading your hosting package.
6. When to bring it to Domain India
Open a ticket with us when several of your accounts slow down at the same moment, when the error log points to the server rather than the site, or when a site is fast on mobile data but slow or unreachable on the customer's office connection (often an IP block). Include the domains, the times, your TTFB results and what you already checked. The reseller support guide lists everything to send: technical support for reseller hosting.
Support is on 24/7 live chat, and tickets get a first response within 15 minutes; how long a fix takes depends on the problem. There is no phone support.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check a reseller customer's resource usage?
Open the customer's own control panel from your reseller panel: from List Accounts in WHM, or with Impersonate under List Users in DirectAdmin. In cPanel, Metrics › Resource Usage shows CPU, memory, I/O and entry processes, and the faults column shows when the account hit a limit.
Can I see the server load as a reseller?
No. A reseller manages their own customers' accounts, not the shared server. If you suspect a server-side problem, for example several of your accounts slowing down at once, open a support ticket with Domain India.
Which caching plugin should my customers use on Domain India shared hosting?
The shared servers run Apache, so use WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache for WordPress rather than LiteSpeed Cache. Keep only one page-caching plugin active. Redis and Memcached are not available on shared plans.
Will a bigger package fix a slow website?
Only if the account is genuinely hitting its resource limits after the site has been optimised. Slowness caused by heavy plugins, slow queries or an external service with no timeout usually stays the same on a bigger package.
Why does a fixed page still look slow or broken on cPanel?
On our cPanel servers nginx caches successful pages in front of Apache for up to 120 minutes. Add ?t= and any text to the address to see what the server returns right now.
Ready to speed up your customer's site? Work through the full slow-website guide, compare reseller hosting plans if your own plan is short of room, or open a ticket if the problem is on the server side.
Send us the domains, when the slowness happens, your test results and what you have already checked.
Open a ticket