How to Cite a Website: Complete Guide for All Styles

Before you can format a website citation, you need to collect five pieces of information from the page itself: the author name (or organization), the publication or last-updated date, the page title, the website or organization name, and the URL. Some pages are missing one or more of these — each style has specific rules for handling the gaps.

The author can be a person or an organization. Look for a byline at the top or bottom of the article. If no individual author is listed, the organization that owns the site (e.g., World Health Organization, NASA) can act as the author. If there is truly no attributable author or organization, most styles instruct you to start the citation with the page title.

• Author — look for a byline on the page, or use the organization name
• Date — the publication date or last-updated date (look in the footer or article metadata)
• Page title — the specific page or article title, not the site name
• Website name — the name of the site or organization that hosts it
• URL — the full, stable web address of the page
• Access date — only required by some styles (Harvard, Vancouver, ABNT)

APA 7th edition uses this template for a web page: Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL

Hamblin, J. (2020, April 3). Will we ever know the true death toll of COVID-19? The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/us-coronavirus-death-rate/609419/

World Health Organization. (2024, May 17). Dementia. WHO. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia

How to write an abstract. (2023, September 12). Scribbr. https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/abstract/

APA in-text citation for a website follows the same (Author, Year) format as any other source: (Hamblin, 2020) or (World Health Organization, 2024). If you quote directly, add the paragraph number since web pages do not have page numbers: (Hamblin, 2020, para. 4).

MLA 9th edition uses a container model. For a web page the core elements are: Author Last, First. "Page Title." Website Name, Day Month Year, URL.

Hamblin, James. "Will We Ever Know the True Death Toll of COVID-19?" The Atlantic, 3 Apr. 2020, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/us-coronavirus-death-rate/609419/.

"How to Write an Abstract." Scribbr, 12 Sept. 2023, www.scribbr.com/dissertation/abstract/.

MLA uses a date format of Day Month Year (abbreviated): 3 Apr. 2020. Month abbreviations: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec. The in-text citation for a website is (Author) — just the author name, no page number, since web pages have neither.

Chicago has two systems. The Notes-Bibliography system (used in humanities) cites in footnotes; the Author-Date system (used in social sciences) uses parenthetical citations like APA. Both require a bibliography entry.

1. James Hamblin, "Will We Ever Know the True Death Toll of COVID-19?" The Atlantic, April 3, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/us-coronavirus-death-rate/609419/.

Hamblin, James. "Will We Ever Know the True Death Toll of COVID-19?" The Atlantic, April 3, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/us-coronavirus-death-rate/609419/.

Chicago recommends including an access date for online sources in case the page moves or disappears: "Accessed May 1, 2025." Place it after the URL. If no publication date is available, place the access date where the date would normally go.

Harvard style is author-date like APA, but the template is slightly different. The general format is: Author, A.A. (Year) Title of page. Available at: URL (Accessed: Day Month Year).

Hamblin, J. (2020) 'Will we ever know the true death toll of COVID-19?', The Atlantic, 3 April. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/us-coronavirus-death-rate/609419/ (Accessed: 1 May 2025).

World Health Organization (2024) Dementia. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia (Accessed: 17 May 2024).

Harvard always requires an access date for online sources — this is one of the key differences from APA 7, which only requires an access date for content that changes over time (such as Wikipedia or dictionary entries). Harvard article titles use single quotation marks, not italics.

The most frequent error students make is citing the homepage URL instead of the URL of the specific page they used. Link directly to the article or page, not to the website front page. A reader following your citation should land on the exact content you are referencing.

• Wrong URL — linking to the homepage instead of the specific page
• Missing "n.d." — leaving the date field blank instead of noting there is no date
• Confusing site name and page title — the site name is The Atlantic; the page title is the article headline
• Including "https://" in MLA — MLA omits the protocol prefix; start with "www."
• Missing access date in Harvard and Vancouver — these styles always require it for online sources
• Not italicizing site names — the website name is treated like a journal name and should be italicized in most styles

If a web page has no stable URL (e.g., it requires a login or changes frequently), note that in your citation. Some styles allow you to cite the database or platform name instead of the URL. When in doubt, the goal is to give your reader the best possible chance of locating the source.