How to Cite a Website: APA, MLA, Chicago Examples 

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With the increase in the number of digital sources and their convenient access for readers, knowing how to cite a website accurately has become increasingly important. An accurate and complete citation helps assure readers that the digital source you have referred to is authentic, thereby adding credibility to your research. Websites are a common digital source to be cited in documents with every company, government, educational institution, publishing house, etc., having a website, each with varying identifying details, which need to be mentioned clearly in citations. 

Although the components of a website citation are mostly similar across all style guides, in this article we’ll cover the steps involved in citing a website in the American Psychological Association (APA, 7^th edition), Modern Language Association (MLA, 9^th edition), and Chicago (17^th edition) styles and illustrate each format with examples. 

What Does it Mean to Cite a Website?

Citing sources is a critical component of all types of documents, including research articles, dissertations, news articles, industry reports, etc. Accurate citation of sources is essential for readers to be able to refer to your research and replicate it, if required. Citations help readers retrace the research steps and identify gaps and limitations, if any, which could help them progress research in their respective fields. 

With so much information available digitally, writers are increasingly preferring to use digital sources. Therefore, it is now necessary to acknowledge the importance of online sources, which are more dynamic than physical books and other content. It is easy to find content related to your subject with a simple search; this also makes it easy for readers to verify citations. Updating digital sources’ data is also easier whereas updating content in physical documents is a time-consuming process that may also require re-printing. 

Why Citing a Website is Important 

Citing a website is important for the same reasons as citing other sources is essential in any type of writing. Citing a website requires you to include all of its identifying information in the reference list and in the main text. It helps to: 

• Ensure academic integrity and credibility of your research 
• Assure readers of the extensive research you have undertaken to obtain your data 
• Give credit to the original research and writers whose work you have referred to 
• Allow readers to verify your research 
• Avoid plagiarism in your writing  

The citation format differ slightly across APA, MLA, and Chicago style guides but essentially cover the same information. This is discussed in detail in the subsequent sections. 

Key Components of a Website Citation

Although websites are presented differently, all of them have a few common components that should be included in the citation, as listed below:¹ 

• Organization/Source: This could be a company, university, publisher, etc. 
• Author names: This information may or may not be included 
• Article title 
• Date published and/or updated 
• Date accessed: Several style guides include this date as well because online sources are continually updated, so writing the last accessed date would help readers understand the recency of the data 
• Web page and website URLs 

Note that different websites may provide different information; some may mention individual authors, while others may include a group or organization. If neither is mentioned, the citation should start with the article title. 

Consider this article published on the NASA website. The following components are mentioned in this article and should be included in the citation. 

• Organization: NASA 
• Author name: No specific authors mentioned, but some citation styles may allow the use of department or team names. So, the Goddard Digital Team could be used here. 
• Article title: NASA+ Documentary “Cosmic Dawn” Reveals Untold Story of James Webb Space Telescope 
• Date published: June 11, 2025 
• Web page URL: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasa-documentary-cosmic-dawn-reveals-untold-story-of-james-webb-space-telescope/ 
• Website URL: www.nasa.gov 

How to Cite a Website (Step-by-Step Guide)

Citing a website is simple provided that you follow the recommended format accurately. Here are a few basic steps: 

1. Determine the citation style, whether APA, MLA, Chicago, or any other. 

2. Note the citation format using placeholders, for instance, <Author name. Article title. Website name. Date published and/or accessed. Web page URL> 

3. Find each required component on the website and replace the placeholders. Note that even the individual components may differ per the citation style. For example, author names, date format, date type are all written differently in each style. 

4. Ensure that the source is cited accurately both in text and in the reference list. 

Website sources can be of several types—web pages, periodicals, news articles, databases, online multimedia such as videos and podcasts, blog posts, etc. In the following subsections, we provide the formats and examples of a few types of website citations for the three different styles—APA, MLA, and Chicago.  

Chicago style includes two citation systems: author-date and notes-bibliography (NB). The author-date system differs mainly in its use of parenthetical text citations rather than citations in numbered notes, and in the bibliography (called a reference list in author-date style), the placement for the year of publication. In this article, we cover the NB system. 

The following table compares how to cite websites across styles.^2,3,4 

The following table gives different examples for citing a website in APA style.² 

Source	Example
Web pages or any online content, with known author	Price, D. (2018, March 23). Laziness does not exist. Medium. https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01
Web pages or any online content, with group name	American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. (2019, November 21). Justice served: Case closed for over 40 dogfighting victims. https://www.aspca.org/news/justice-served-case-closed-over-40-dogfighting-victims
Web pages with no author name	Tuscan white bean pasta. (2018, February 25). Budgetbytes. Retrieved March 18, 2020, from https://www.budgetbytes.com/tuscan-white-bean-pasta/
Web pages with no date	National Alliance on Mental Illness. (n.d.). Mental health conditions. https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions
Online periodicals with DOI	Drollinger, T., Comer, L. B., & Warrington, P. T. (2006). Development and validation of the active empathetic listening scale. Psychology & Marketing, 23(2), 161-180. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20105
Online periodicals without DOI	Perreault, L. (2019). Obesity in adults: Role of physical activity and exercise. UpToDate. Retrieved January 12, 2020, from https://www.uptodate.com/contents/obesity-in-adults-role-of-physical-activity-and-exercise
Online news article (from a site with an associated newspaper)	Richards, C. (2019, December 9). Best music of 2019: Lana Del Rey sings lullabies about the end of America. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/best-music-of-2019-lana-del-rey-sings-lullabies-about-the-end-of-america/2019/12/06/6e82c5ec-15d8-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html
Online news article (NOT from a site with an associated newspaper)	Jones, J. (2020, May 10). Why flats dominate Spain’s housing market. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200506-why-do-flats-dominate-spains-housing-market

How to Cite a Website in MLA Style

The following table lists examples for citing a website in MLA style.⁵ 

Website source	Example
Entire website	The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2008, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl. Accessed 23 Apr. 2008. OR  Felluga, Dino. Guide to Literary and Critical Theory. Purdue U, 28 Nov. 2003, www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/. Accessed 10 May 2006.
Web page	Lundman, Susan. “How to Make Vegetarian Chili.” eHow, www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html. Accessed 6 July 2015. “Athlete’s Foot – Topic Overview.” WebMD, 25 Sept. 2014, www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/tc/athletes-foot-topic-overview
Article in a web magazine	Bernstein, Mark. “10 Tips on Writing the Living Web.” A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites, 16 Aug. 2002, alistapart.com/article/writeliving. Accessed 4 May 2009.
Article in an online-only journal article	Dolby, Nadine. “Research in Youth Culture and Policy: Current Conditions and Future Directions.” Social Work and Society: The International Online-Only Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2008, www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/60/362. Accessed 20 May 2009.

How to Cite a Website in Chicago Style

When citing a website in Chicago style,⁴ the formats for notes and bibliographies when referring to a general web source are as follows: 

Notes 

1. First name Last name, “Title of Web Page,” Name of Website, Publishing Organization, publication or revision date if available, access date if no other date is available, URL. 

Bibliography 

Last name, First name. “Title of Web Page.” Name of Website. Publishing organization, publication or revision date if available. Access date if no other date is available. URL. 

The following table gives a few examples for citing a website in the two formats per Chicago style.⁴ 

Source	Notes	Bibliography
eBooks	1. Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon, 2001), https://bibliotecamathom.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/essays-on-actions-and-events.pdf.	Davidson, Donald. Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Clarendon, 2001. https://bibliotecamathom.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/essays-on-actions-and-events.pdf.
Online periodicals (journals, magazines, news articles)	1. Kirsi Peltonen et al. “Parental Violence and Adolescent Mental Health,” European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 19, no. 11 (2010): 813-822, doi: 10.1007/s00787-010-0130-8.	Peltonen, Kirsi, Noora Ellonen, Helmer B. Larsen, and Karin Helweg-Larsen. “Parental Violence and Adolescent Mental Health.” European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 19, no. 11 (2010): 813-822. doi: 10.1007/s00787-010-0130-8.
Web page with known author and date	7. Richard Kimberly Heck, “About the Philosophical Gourmet Report,” last modified August 5, 2016, http://rgheck.frege.org/philosophy/aboutpgr.php.	Heck, Richard Kimberly. “About the Philosophical Gourmet Report.” Last modified August 5, 2016. http://rgheck.frege.org/philosophy/aboutpgr.php.
Web page with known date but no author	8. “Illinois Governor Wants to ‘Fumigate’ State’s Government,” CNN online, January 30, 2009, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/30/illinois.governor.	“Illinois Governor Wants to ‘Fumigate’ State’s Government.” CNN online. January 30, 2009. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/30/illinois.governor.
Web page with unknown publication date & author	9. “Band,” Casa de Calexico, accessed October 27, 2017, http://www.casadecalexico.com/band.	“Band.” Casa de Calexico. Accessed October 27, 2017. http://www.casadecalexico.com/band.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Citing a Website

Here are a few common mistakes to watch out for while citing a website. 

1. Incorrect style guide: Always refer to the correct style guide to ensure that accurate information is included. 
2. Incomplete or missing information: Every element per the format should be included in the citation for it to be considered complete. 
3. Missing access or retrieval dates: Web sources are constantly updated so the access date should be mentioned clearly. 
4. Citing the entire website vs. a specific page: When citing a specific page, provide more detailed information than when citing the entire website.  
5. Inconsistent citation style: Stick to one citation style throughout the document. 
6. Non-functional URLs and DOIs: Always check the URLs and DOIs to ensure that they are functioning. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes a website citation credible? 

The following aspects should be considered while evaluating the credibility of a website citation: completeness, currency, accuracy, relevance, and authority.6 This is similar to the CRAAP Test designed to evaluate sources. 

• Completeness: The website citation should be complete and include all aspects per the style guide format. 
• Currency: The information should be current. You should be able to answer questions such as: 
  1. When was the information published/posted/revised/updated? 
  2. Are the URLs, DOIs, hyperlinks, etc., functional? 
• Accuracy: The information provided in the website citation should be accurate. For example, the author names should be accurate with correct spellings, the page numbers should be correct, etc. 
• Relevance: The website citation should be relevant to the subject of your article. 
• Authority: The source of the information, that is, the main organization, publisher, university, etc., that has published the information on their website should be clearly mentioned. You should be able to answer the following questions: 
  1. Who is the author/publisher/sponsor? 
  1. Does the URL reveal anything about the source? 

What is the difference between citing a website and citing a book?

Citations for websites and books have different formats for different styles. The tables below present the general formats for the APA, MLA, and Chicago styles along with a few examples for each type of source.(7,8) The tables cover examples of only a few types of books. 

Style	Basic format
APA	Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work: Capital letter also for subtitle. Publisher Name. DOI (if available)
MLA	Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication, Publisher, Publication Date.
Chicago	Note  1. First name Last name, Title of Book (Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication), page number.    Bibliography  Last name, First name. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

The following table gives examples of various types of book citations. Note that there are no URLs and access and published dates included here, which are characteristic of website citations. 

Source	APA	MLA	Chicago
One author/organization	Stoneman, R. (2008). Alexander the Great: A life in legend. Yale University Press.	Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. Penguin, 1987.    American Allergy Association. Allergies in Children. Random House, 1998.	Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums. New York: Viking Press, 1958.
Multiple authors	Nguyen, T., Carnevale, J. J., Scholer, A. A., Miele, D. B., & Fujita, K. (2019).     Metamotivational knowledge of the role of high-level and low-level construal in goal-relevant task performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(5), 879-899.	Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. Allyn and Bacon, 2000.    Wysocki, Anne Frances, et al. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. Utah State UP, 2004.	Lash, Scott, and John Urry. Economies of Signs & Space. London: Sage Publications, 1994.
Translated work with one author	Plato (1989). Symposium (A. Nehamas & P. Woodruff, Trans.). Hackett Publishing Company. (Original work published ca. 385-378 BCE)	Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard, Vintage-Random House, 1988.	Cortázar, Julio. Hopscotch. Translated by Gregory Rabassa. New York: Pantheon Books, 1966.
Author & editor	Malory, T. (2017). Le morte darthur (P. J. C. Field, Ed.). D. S. Brewer. (Original work published 1469-70)	Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre, edited by Margaret Smith, Oxford UP, 1998.	Tylor, Edward B. Researches into the Early Development of Mankind and the Development of Civilization. Edited by Paul Bohannan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
Chapter from a single-author book	Armstrong, D. (2019). Malory and character. In M. G. Leitch & C. J. Rushton (Eds.), A new companion to Malory (pp. 144-163). D. S. Brewer.	Harris, Muriel. "Talk to Me: Engaging Reluctant Writers." A Tutor's Guide: Helping Writers One to One, edited by Ben Rafoth, Heinemann, 2000, pp. 24-34.	Anzaldúa, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” In Borderlands: The New Mestiza – La Frontera, 53–64. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Book Company, 1987.

How do I write in-text citations for a website?

A3. In-text citation formats differ across styles.  APA  Cite electronic sources the same as any other document, using the author-date style.  Example: John (2022) explained…  If no author or date is given, use the title in your signal phrase or the first word or two of the title in the parentheses and use the abbreviation "n.d." (for "no date").  Example: Another study of students and research decisions discovered that students succeeded with tutoring ("Tutoring and APA," n.d.).   MLA  Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g., author name, article name, website name, film name).  Unless you must list the Website name in the signal phrase in order to get the reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a domain name, like CNN.com or Forbes.com, as opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com.  Chicago  As mentioned earlier, the Chicago style offers two ways of including in-text citations: author-date and NB. Here are a few examples of the author-date citation.  Reference list entries  Google. 2023. “Privacy Policy.” Privacy & Terms. Effective November 15. https://policies.google.com/privacy.  Wikimedia Foundation. 2023. “Wikipedia: Manual of Style.” Last modified December 19, at 21:54 (UTC). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style.  In-text citations  (Google 2023)  (Wikimedia Foundation 2022)  To summarize, while citing websites differs across different style guides, all of them have a basic format and necessary elements that should be included in the citation. Ensuring accuracy and consistency in citing websites is extremely important to help readers follow your research direction and verify the information. We hope this article has given you an easy-to-understand comparative summary of how to cite a website in APA/MLA/Chicago styles. 

REFERENCES 

1. What information do I need to cite a webpage? Simon Fraser University. Accessed June 16, 2025. https://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/cite-write/citation-elements-website 

2. Reference list: Electronic sources. Purdue Online Writing Lab. Purdue University. Accessed June 17, 2025. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_electronic_sources.html 

3. Web sources. Purdue Online Writing Lab. Purdue University. Accessed June 18, 2025. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/web_sources.html 

4. MLA: Works cited page. The University of Arizona Global Campus Writing Center. Accessed June 19, 2025. https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/mla-works-cited-page 

5. MLA works cited: Electronic sources (web publications). Purdue Online Writing Lab. Purdue University. Accessed June 20, 2025. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_electronic_sources.html 

6. Kampen, KV. Evaluating resources and misinformation. The CRAAP Test. UChicago Library. Accessed June 21, 2025. https://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/c.php?g=1241077&p=9082343 

7. Reference list: Books. Purdue Online Writing Lab. Purdue University. Accessed June 18, 2025. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_books.html 

8. MLA Works cited page: Books. Purdue Online Writing Lab. Purdue University. Accessed June 18, 2025. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_page_books.html 

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