To cite a website in APA 7, use this format: Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL. The matching in-text citation is (Author, Year), for example (Bologna, 2019). Everything below shows what to change when the author, date, or site name is missing, with examples taken from the official APA Style guidelines.
This guide covers single webpages. If you need the general author-date system or formats for books and journal articles, start with our guide on how to cite in APA.
Quick Answer: The Five Parts of an APA Website Citation
- Author: the person or group responsible for the page. Spell out group names (World Health Organization, not WHO).
- Date: the most specific date shown for the content, such as (2019, October 31). Use (n.d.) when there is no date. A copyright year in the site footer is not the date of the page.
- Title: the title of the specific page, in italics and sentence case (only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns are capitalized).
- Site name: in plain text, followed by a period. Leave it out when it is the same as the author.
- URL: the full address of the page. Do not write «Retrieved from» and do not add a period after the URL.
APA Website Citation Format for Every Case
| Case | Reference pattern | In-text citation |
|---|---|---|
| Individual author | Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL | (Author, Year) |
| Group author | Group Name. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL | (Group Name, Year) |
| Group author is the same as the site name | Group Name. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. URL (site name omitted) | (Group Name, Year) |
| No date | Author, A. A. (n.d.). Title of page. Site Name. URL | (Author, n.d.) |
| No author | Title of page. (Year, Month Day). Site Name. URL (the title moves to the author position) | (Title of Page, Year) |
| Page designed to change and not archived | Author. (n.d.). Title of page. Site Name. Retrieved Month Day, Year, from URL | (Author, n.d.) |
| Comments and social media posts | Not covered by this format. Comments use a bracketed description, and posts on X, Facebook, or Instagram have their own reference types. | See the specific format |
A retrieval date is the exception, not the rule. APA asks for one only when the content is meant to change over time and the page is not archived, such as a live population counter or a frequently updated data dashboard. A news article or a blog post does not need one.
APA In-Text Citations for Websites
Every reference list entry needs a matching citation in the body of your paper. APA 7 gives you two forms:
- Parenthetical: The homework gap widened during school closures (Schaeffer, 2021).
- Narrative: Schaeffer (2021) described how the homework gap widened during school closures.
When you paraphrase, the author and year are enough. When you quote directly, you also need a location. Most webpages have no page numbers, so count paragraphs and use «para.» instead:
- Parenthetical quote: «[quoted words]» (Bologna, 2019, para. 3).
- Narrative quote: Bologna (2019) wrote that «[quoted words]» (para. 3).
- Long page with headings: (National Institute of Mental Health, 2018, Heading Name section, para. 2), naming the heading above the quote and counting paragraphs from there.
- PDF with real page numbers: (National Cancer Institute, 2019, p. 12).
For a page with no author, use the title in the author position of the citation, in title case. Italicize it if it is italicized in the reference: (Title of Page, 2020). For a Wikipedia entry, put the title in quotation marks: («Oil Painting,» 2019). For a group with a well-known abbreviation, give the full name and the abbreviation the first time, (World Health Organization [WHO], 2018), and then (WHO, 2018) afterward. Our APA in-text citation guide covers two authors, three or more authors, and multiple works in one parenthesis.
APA Website Citation Examples
All of the references below come from the examples published by the APA Style team. On your reference page, each one would get a hanging indent and double spacing.
Article on a news website
Bologna, C. (2019, October 31). Why some people with anxiety love watching horror movies. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anxiety-love-watching-horror-movies_l_5d277587e4b02a5a5d57b59e
In-text: (Bologna, 2019). Use this format for news sites without a print newspaper, such as HuffPost, CNN, BBC News, or Reuters. For articles from newspaper websites such as The New York Times, APA uses the newspaper article format, where the article title is plain and the newspaper name is italicized.
Government webpage (group author)
National Institute of Mental Health. (2018, July). Anxiety disorders. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml
In-text: (National Institute of Mental Health, 2018). The specific agency is the author, and the parent agencies appear in the site name position. When the organization and the site are the same, drop the site name:
World Health Organization. (2018, May 24). The top 10 causes of death. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
Webpage with an individual author
Schaeffer, K. (2021, October 1). What we know about online learning and the homework gap amid the pandemic. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/01/what-we-know-about-online-learning-and-the-homework-gap-amid-the-pandemic/
In-text: (Schaeffer, 2021).
Wikipedia entry (archived version)
Oil painting. (2019, December 8). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oil_painting&oldid=929802398
In-text: («Oil Painting,» 2019). Wikipedia pages change constantly, so APA asks you to cite the archived version you read. Open the article, select «View history,» click the date and time of the version you used, and copy that permanent URL. Check with your instructor first, since many courses do not accept Wikipedia as a source.
Blog post
Ouellette, J. (2019, November 15). Physicists capture first footage of quantum knots unraveling in superfluid. Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/study-you-can-tie-a-quantum-knot-in-a-superfluid-but-it-will-soon-untie-itself/
In-text: (Ouellette, 2019). Blog posts follow the journal article pattern, which flips the italics: the post title is plain and the blog name is italicized.
PDF report from an organization’s website
National Cancer Institute. (2019). Taking time: Support for people with cancer (NIH Publication No. 18-2059). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/takingtime.pdf
In-text: (National Cancer Institute, 2019). A stand-alone PDF report is cited as a report, not a webpage. Include the report number in parentheses after the title if there is one, and cite page numbers for quotes because the PDF has them.
Webpage with no date and a retrieval date
U.S. Census Bureau. (n.d.). U.S. and world population clock. U.S. Department of Commerce. Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://www.census.gov/popclock/
In-text: (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.). The retrieval date appears here because the numbers on the page update continuously.
Common Mistakes When Citing Websites in APA
| Mistake | Correct approach |
|---|---|
| Adding «Retrieved from» before every URL | Use a retrieval date only for pages designed to change that are not archived. |
| Repeating the organization as both author and site name | Omit the site name when it matches the author. |
| Using the copyright year from the footer as the date | Use the date of the page content, or (n.d.) if none is given. |
| Italicizing the site name | Italicize the page title. The site name stays plain (blog names are the exception). |
| Writing the page title in title case | Use sentence case in the reference list. |
| Writing «Anonymous» when no author is listed | Move the title to the author position. Use «Anonymous» only if the page is signed that way. |
| Citing the homepage when you used one article | Cite the specific page and its full URL. |
| Putting a period after the URL | End the reference with the URL and no punctuation. |
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I cite a website with no author in APA 7?
Move the page title to the author position, followed by the date: Title of page. (Year, Month Day). Site Name. URL. In the text, use the title in title case, shortened if it is long: (Title of Page, Year). Before deciding there is no author, check whether an organization is responsible for the page. If so, that organization is the group author.
Do I need to include the date I accessed a website?
Usually no. APA 7 dropped the «Retrieved from» phrase for most online sources. Add «Retrieved Month Day, Year, from» only when the page content is designed to change over time and there is no archived version, such as a live data page.
How do I cite an entire website instead of one page?
You do not need a reference list entry to mention a whole website. Name it in your sentence and give the URL in parentheses, for example: the APA Style website (https://apastyle.apa.org) has many reference examples. If you use specific information from a page, cite that page.
How should website references look on the reference page?
Website entries go in the same alphabetical list as every other source, with double spacing and a 0.5-inch hanging indent. See our guide to APA reference page format for the full rules, and set up the rest of your paper with our APA title page and APA headings guides.