Study tower · floor
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.” 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.”
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.”
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.
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.“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.”
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 floors 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.
The most persistent piece of citation folklore, and conditional in all three styles — on three different conditions.
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 floor 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.
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.
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Written on 22 August 2026.
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