How to cite a website in every style
Websites are the second-most-cited source type after journal articles. They're also where students bleed marks. Two mistakes do most of the damage: pasting a bare URL where the citation should be, and mixing up the page title with the site name. This guide covers how to cite a website in APA, MLA, Chicago (both flavors), and Harvard. Our free citation generator does it all from one URL.
What information do you need?
Six fields. Grab them before you start. The author (person or org), the publication or update date, the page title, the site name, the URL, and an access date for the styles that want one.
No listed author? Use the publishing organization instead. And if the org is the site — say, a WHO page sitting on the WHO domain — most styles tell you to drop the duplicate site name.
How to cite a website in APA 7
APA's order: author or organization first, then the year and date in parentheses, then the page title in sentence case. Italicize the title only when there's no separate site name. Site name next. URL last.
Author. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL
Tufekci, Z. (2023, May 14). The case for slow journalism. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/
World Health Organization. (2023, October 4). Mental health. https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health
No author and no date
Common interview questions. (n.d.). Career Services Online. Retrieved April 25, 2026, from https://www.cso.example.org/interview
Our APA citation style guide covers the rest, including the odd rule that promotes the title to the author slot when there's no listed author.
How to cite a website in MLA 9
MLA runs on its core elements: Author. "Title of page." Site Name, publication date, URL. The publisher sometimes sits between site name and date, sometimes doesn't.
Author Last Name, First Name. "Title of Page." Site Name, Day Month Year, URL.
Tufekci, Zeynep. "The Case for Slow Journalism." The Atlantic, 14 May 2023, www.theatlantic.com/.
https:// from URLs in Works Cited entries — write www.theatlantic.com/, not https://www.theatlantic.com/.How to cite a website in Chicago
Chicago notes-bibliography (footnote)
1. Zeynep Tufekci, "The Case for Slow Journalism," The Atlantic, May 14, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/.
Tufekci, Zeynep. "The Case for Slow Journalism." The Atlantic, May 14, 2023. https://www.theatlantic.com/.
Chicago author-date
Tufekci, Zeynep. 2023. "The Case for Slow Journalism." The Atlantic, May 14, 2023. https://www.theatlantic.com/.
How to cite a website in Harvard
Harvard wants an "Available at:" URL plus an access date. That second bit trips up writers coming from APA, where the 7th edition made access dates optional.
Tufekci, Z. (2023) 'The case for slow journalism', The Atlantic, 14 May. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/ (Accessed: 30 April 2026).
Edge cases
No author
No author listed? Use the publishing organization. No organization either? Slide the page title up into the author slot. APA italicizes the title when it gets promoted that way, since stand-alone works always take italics in the author position.
No date
APA wants (n.d.). MLA wants n.d. without the parentheses. Chicago and Harvard fall back on the access date when there's no publication date to use.
PDF on a website
A PDF on a website isn't a webpage. Cite the thing inside the PDF — a report, an article, a chapter. Our how to cite a PDF guide walks through it.
Archived snapshots (Wayback Machine)
Page changed since you read it? Cite a Wayback Machine snapshot instead and include the snapshot date so your reader sees the version you saw.
Common mistakes
Citing the URL instead of the source
A URL is a street address. It isn't a citation. Your reader needs the author, title, date, and site to judge the source. The link alone tells them nothing.
Listing the site name as the author
Zeynep Tufekci on The Atlantic? Tufekci's the author. The Atlantic is the site. Putting the magazine in the author slot is wrong unless the piece really did run unsigned.
Including "https://" in MLA URLs
MLA 9 strips the https:// off URLs in your Works Cited. Just leave the domain.
Quick reference
| Style | In-text format | Reference / Works Cited entry shape |
|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | (Tufekci, 2023) | Author. (Year, Month Day). Title. Site. URL |
| MLA 9 | (Tufekci) | Author. "Title." Site, date, URL. |
| Chicago NB | Footnote | Author, "Title," Site, date, URL. |
| Chicago AD | (Tufekci 2023) | Author. Year. "Title." Site, date. URL. |
| Harvard | (Tufekci, 2023) | Author (Year) 'Title', Site, date. Available at: URL (Accessed: date). |
Cite any webpage in seconds — paste a URL into our free citation generator and switch between APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard with one click.
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