Study · guide
By Alberto Gulotta · Updated · 11 min read
How to cite a website has no single answer, and the reason is more interesting than the formatting. The three major style bodies do not merely differ over commas — they disagree about whether “a website” is a kind of source at all, and each of them says so in its own documentation.
Entries “are created using the MLA template of core elements — facts common to most sources, like author, title, and publication date.”
The instruction is to “evaluate the work you’re citing to see which elements apply to the source.” There is no website format because there are no formats.
APA does publish “Webpage on a Website References”, with worked examples for news sites, government agencies, organisations and individuals.
And one rule that decides the fiddly part: “When contents of a page are designed to change over time but are not archived, include a retrieval date in the reference.”
Chicago starts by questioning the premise, and then gives two different shapes depending on whether you are writing a note or a bibliography entry.
In notes “the title will usually come first”; in a bibliography “the source should be listed under the owner or sponsor of the site.”
| Element | What goes there | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Author | The person, “or alias if known” | Purdue OWL |
| Title of source | The page or article, in quotation marks | Purdue OWL |
| Title of container | The site it sits in, in italics | Purdue OWL |
| Publisher | “If the publisher is the same as the website name, only list it once” | Purdue OWL |
| Date | The date of the page, when it has one | Purdue OWL |
| Location | The URL. “You may also omit the protocol (http:// or https://) from URLs” | Purdue OWL |
| Access date | “Optional and should only be included for sources without a publication date or those that are likely to change” | Purdue OWL |
Take the first card seriously, because it changes what you are looking for. MLA does not have a website format that you look up; it has one template that you apply to everything, and a website is a container rather than a category. Its own examples say so in their headings: not “a website”, but “Article on a website” and “Book on a website”. What you are citing is the work. The site is where you found it.
That single idea is why the rule is hard to find in MLA: there is no rule for websites, because the question the template asks is what the thing is — an article, a report, a post, a page of an organisation — and the site is one field among several.
“It is often sufficient simply to describe web pages and other website content in the text (‘As of November 15, 2023, Google’s privacy policy stated . . .’). If a more formal citation is needed, it may be styled like the examples below.”
That is the Chicago Manual of Style, on its own citation guide, telling you that the citation you came here to construct may not be required at all. Note the word sufficient: Chicago is not saying the citation would be wrong, it is saying a sentence naming the page and the date can carry the same information — and for prose rather than a formal paper, that is worth knowing before you start formatting anything.
Chicago’s guide also offers something the other two do not on their own website pages: if the content might change, and “a publicly available archive of the content has been saved using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine or similar service, the link for that version may be cited.” Citing the archived copy rather than the live page solves the problem at its root.
The same kind of source, in each style’s own example
Set those three side by side and the shape of each style shows through. MLA leads with the author and puts the container in italics. APA leads with the author and then the date, which is the shape its in-text citations take too. Chicago, in a bibliography, leads with the owner or sponsor of the site — which is why the Google example begins with the word Google rather than with the title of the page.
The access date, which is conditional in all three
That table is worth reading twice, because it is narrower than the rule this usually gets taught as. The access date is not required by default in any of the three. MLA’s website examples do not carry one. APA attaches it to a specific condition about changing, unarchived content. Chicago attaches it to a different condition — the absence of a publication or revision date. Three bodies, three answers, and none of them is “always”.
One practical consequence for anybody citing a page like this one. If the page shows a date, use it and you are past the whole question. If it does not, you are in the condition Chicago describes and an access date becomes the fallback. And if the page is the sort of thing that will be different next month — a price, a policy, a live figure — APA’s rule and Chicago’s archive suggestion are pointing at the same worry from two directions.
The guides below take it four ways: each style’s own answer, and the access date that connects them.
Four ways in.
One template for every source, which is why there is no website format to look up. The site is a container; the work is what you are citing.
A published category with worked examples, and one condition that decides whether you need a retrieval date.
The style that questions the premise, and then gives two different orders depending on whether you are writing a note or a bibliography.
Cite the page, not the site. Author, then the page title in quotation marks, then the site name in italics, then the date and the URL — Purdue’s own example is: “Athlete’s Foot - Topic Overview.” WebMD, 25 Sept. 2014, followed by the address.
Begin with the title of the page. Nothing else changes, and the entry alphabetises under that title. For an entire site with no single author, MLA asks you to “include a compiler name if no single author is available”.
In MLA, only sometimes. It “is optional and should only be included for sources without a publication date or those that are likely to change (e.g., a wiki)”. Purdue also notes that the word “Accessed” is no longer used before it in every case.
Not usually. Purdue: “you may also omit the protocol (http:// or https://) from URLs unless you are hyperlinking your source in software that requires the full protocol.” The exception is a DOI, where https:// is always included.
Not covered here. It will not give you one universal format. The three bodies publish three different answers, and the honest page shows all three rather than picking.
It will not tell you an access date is required. None of the three requires one by default, and each attaches it to a different condition.
And it will not send you to a citation generator before explaining the shape. A generator that fills a template you do not understand produces errors you cannot see. What holds instead is simple: every rule and example on this guide is quoted from the style bodies themselves — the MLA Style Center, APA Style and the Chicago Manual of Style — on the date they were read.
The order a student meets these in, from the lecture to the reference list.
Which style you were told to use decides everything below it.
Written by Alberto Gulotta
Founder and editor of AI Tools Primer, writing from Palermo, Italy. Thirty-five years of taking computers apart, starting with a Commodore 64 — the long version is on the about page.
Something wrong on this page? Write to aitoolsprimer@gmail.com and it gets fixed.
Written on 22 August 2026 · last checked 3 September 2026.
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