How to Cite a Website in APA

This guide explains all of the important steps to referencing a website/web page in your APA research papers. The guidance below follows APA style, 7th edition.

APA format is much different than MLA format and other styles. If you need to cite websites in MLA, or you’re looking for more styles, check out the other resources on EasyBib.com!

Guide Overview

Here’s a run-through of everything this page includes:

What is a website? Am I citing a website or a web page?

A website is a place on the Internet that holds a group of individual pages (called web pages).

Think of a website like a tree. A website is the tree, and the individual web pages are the branches. Use YouTube as an example. YouTube is the site, and the individual channel pages and video pages are the branches. Wikipedia is a site, and each article has its own individual web page on that site.

Most of the time, you aren’t trying to cite a whole, entire site, but actually an individual web page. If you used a YouTube video to help you with your research project, you wouldn’t cite the entire YouTube site, you would cite the specific YouTube page the video was found on.

Here’s a similar question we’re often asked when it comes to the APA citation of a web page:

Q: This page describes citing specific pages and articles. Can I cite an entire site?

A: According to the APA manual (7th edition), it is not necessary to cite a site in its entirety in a reference list. Instead, include a reference to the website in the body of your paper and cite any web page individually.

Example:

The Department of Justice has just released a new site called ReportCrime.gov at https://www.reportcrime.gov/ to help people identify and report crimes in their area.

In the above passage, the website is stated in the text rather than cited. This guide focuses on how to cite individual pages found on the web (web pages). If you used an entire website, it’s perfectly acceptable to cite the whole site in the text of your paper, as shown above, but for the most part, you want to cite the page where the information was found.

If you’re seeking out an APA citation website to take the stress away from proper referencing, try out EasyBib.com! Stop typing into the search bar, “how to cite a website APA” or “APA in-text citation website.” EasyBib.com is the answer to your referencing questions and needs!

Citing a website in the text (in-text citation)

When you include a piece of information from a site in your project, you must include two citations: a brief citation in the text and also a full citation on the reference page.

When it comes to mentions in the text, students are sometimes tempted to put the web address in the body of a project. However, URLs can be long, clunky, and distracting. They should never be written in the body of a project.

Instead of writing the full address in the text, use the last name of the author and the date the source was published. If no author is shown, write the title of the individual page and the date.

For direct quotations, you may use paragraphs to indicate the quotation’s location in the work. Count the paragraphs manually if needed and use the abbreviation “para.” for paragraph.

Check out this in-text citation APA website example:

In-text citation
Examples: The ice shelves in the Antarctic Peninsula have been affected by climate change (Rasmussen, 2021).

The above APA website in-text citation (the author’s last name and the date the information was published) corresponds to the information on the final page of the project, the reference page.

Here’s how the full APA citation for a web page looks on the final page of the project:

Rasmussen, C. (2021, October 12). Icy ‘glue’ may control pace of Antarctic ice-shelf breakup. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/icy-glue-may-control-pace-of-antarctic-ice-shelf-breakup

Need more in-text citation APA website info? Here’s more on how to build an APA parenthetical citation. You may also like our full-length guide on how to create an APA in-text citation.

If you’re looking for information on structuring other styles in the text of your paper, check out our page on MLA in-text and parenthetical citations.

Citing a website on the reference page

In the next section of this APA citation website guide, we’re going to focus on how to format an APA website citation. If you’re wondering how to create an APA citation of a web page, the majority of web references use the structure shown below.

General structure for how to cite a website in APA

Note: A retrieval date is no longer required for online sources. It’s only needed if the content is likely to change over time (such as wikis and social media). The article or page title should be italicized. The URL is at the end and does not have a period after it.

Full reference example:

Last name, F. M. (Year, Month Date Published). Article title or page title. Site Name. URL

Limer, E. (2013, October 1). Heck yes! The first free wireless plan is finally here. Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/heck-yes-the-first-free-wireless-plan-is-finally-here

Example of an in-text citation for a website in APA:

According to Limer (2013), …

If you’re looking for an APA format website to do the work for you, try out EasyBib.com’s citation generator. Our APA citation website makes referencing a breeze!

Citing a general web article without an author

APA citation for website structure:

Do you need to cite a source with no author in APA? No problem. Wikipedia pages, online dictionary sites, and online encyclopedia sites are just a few examples of sites without an author. When there is no clear individual author, use the website organization (group author) as the author.

Group authors

There are plenty of times when an individual’s name isn’t listed as the author, but the information on the site is written by a group, organization, or company.

In an APA website citation, it is completely acceptable to use the group’s name in the author position. Type it out in its entirety and add a period at the end. Check out the various APA citation of web page examples at the bottom of the page to see group authors in action!

Note: If the author name and website name is the same, just list it once in as the author; leave out the website name section in the APA citation.

APA citation for website example:

Website Name. (Year, Month Date of publication). Title of page/article. Site Name. URL

Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2021. (2014). Malala Yousafzai – facts. NobelPrize.org. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2014/yousafzai/lecture/

(Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2021, 2014)

Dates

If you’re wondering whether to include the full date in your APA citation for web pages (month, day, and year) or just the year, we have the answer for you here.

An APA citation of web page reference includes the month, day, and year if it’s a site that is updated with new information frequently. Blog posts, newspaper articles, posts from social media profiles, and YouTube videos are just a few of the sources that would display the full date. In an APA citation for web pages, it’s written in this order in parentheses: (Year, Month Day).

Mukherjee, S. (2016, November 17). How far can we push the limits of human life? Scientists explore the edges of our morality. VICE. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wdj7qz/how-far-can-we-push-the-limits-of-human-life

If there is any information missing, simply include what is available. Also, if there is no date, indicate this by using (n.d.).

No date APA website example:

Chegg Inc. (n.d.). Marginal product of labor. https://www.chegg.com/learn/economics/introduction-to-economics/marginal-product-of-labor

If you’re using the EasyBib citation generator to create an APA citation for a web page, our technology structures dates for you in their proper order. It’s the APA format website (and also the APA in-text citation website) you’ve been waiting for. Give it a whirl!

Titles of pages on the web

Here’s the advice we provide on many of our guides:

Long story short, do not italicize an APA citation for web pages’ title in the text and on the final page of references.

For full references on the final page of the project, only include capital letters at the beginning of the title, at the beginning of each proper noun, and at the beginning of the first word in the subtitle.

The title is written in the text only when there isn’t an author listed. So, instead of showing the reference as (Author, Date), use (“Title of Page,” Date) in any APA citation for web pages. Notice the switch from sentence case to title case in the text reference.

Extra information

A little extra information goes a long way when it comes to site citations. If you’re including a unique source type, include information about the medium directly after the title. This information is placed in brackets. Only the first letter is capitalized.

Here are a few examples you might see in an APA citation for a web page:

To see some of the extra information in action, scroll down to the examples towards the bottom of this page.

Speaking of extra information, it may not hurt to get some extra details on grammar topics in that brain of yours. Brush up on your adjective, pronoun, and interjection knowledge with our comprehensive guides!

Publisher information

Any information related to the publisher is not invited to the web citation party. In an APA citation of a web page, you do not need to include information about the company that made the site, where its offices are located, or any other similar information about the company in any web references. One thing less to worry about in your APA citation for web pages!

Other source types are much different, so before you exclude publisher information from all of your references, make sure you check out our APA citation page. While you’re at it, check out our other helpful resources, such as APA reference page and MLA works cited.

Web addresses and DOIs

We also need a web address and DOI number in an APA citation for a web page. Including site addresses and DOIs are an absolute necessity. Addresses and DOIs (which stand for direct object identifiers) are usually the last item in an APA website citation.

For sites, after adding the full URL to the APA citation for a web page, do not end it with a period. If the address is very long, it is acceptable to roll it onto the next line, but break it up so that a type of punctuation mark or symbol is the first item closest to the left margin. Check out the APA citation of a webpage URL below.

APA citation of a webpage example of a properly structured URL:

https://books.google.com/books?id=Oa0JAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=sports+ medicine&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi1l-jy-fPiAhVLMY8KHQD6BfUQ6AEIWjAJ#v=onepage&q=sports %20medicine&f=false

DOI numbers are assigned by publishers to electronic sources such as journal articles, e-books, datasets, and more. They’re a string of numbers and sometimes other characters. If the source you’re using has a DOI number assigned to it, place it at the end of the APA website citation, instead of the URL, in this format: https://doi.org/10.XXXXXXXXX. Place the DOI string in place of the X’s shown above.

DOIs were created to combat the problem of broken links and 404 errors (pages taken down). Think about it: if a webpage is taken off of the Internet, it can be pretty difficult to find a copy of it. If you’re lucky, an archive site may have a copy stored somewhere, but for the most part, when sites are gone, they’re gone. DOIs are permanent, making them the ideal choice to include in any APA citation for webpages.

APA properly structured DOI:

Reference Page
Example https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04043-8

APA format for online news articles

APA differentiates between traditional newspapers that are online versus news websites with no daily/weekly/monthly newspaper or magazine edition. Unsure what you’re citing? Follow this decision tree: