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How to Cite a Website in APA

APA 7 cites a webpage as a standalone work: the person or group that wrote the page, the most specific date that page prints, an italic sentence-case title, a site name only when it differs from the author, and the URL with no period after it. This page follows the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition (2020), §10.16 and §§9.13–9.16, plus the current APA Style webpage on a website references and whole website references. University reprints of those pages (Rutgers, Stonehill, Master's University, CSULB) still carry the official Toner, Bologna, Roberts, Owens, NIMH, WHO, Giovanetti, and Census strings. It is the APA website guide. It is not the MLA website, Chicago website, APA newspaper, or APA social media tutorial.

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How to Cite a Website in APA: Quick Answer

Name the individual or corporate author of the page, not the homepage. Write the date as specifically as the page gives it (Year, Month Day, Year, Month, or Year). Italicize the page title in sentence case. Add the site name in title case only when it is not the same words as the author. End with the URL you actually opened. Pair the reference-list entry with an in-text citation that uses those same names and the year. Start from the APA generator when you want the same pattern filled in.

APA 7 §10.16 templates

Reference, named author plus a different site:

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. https://www.example.com/page

Reference, group author same as the site:

Organization Name. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. https://www.example.com/page

Reference, government agency plus parent agencies:

Agency Name. (Year, Month). Title of page. Parent Agency. https://www.example.com/page

Reference, no date on a stable page:

Author, A. A. (n.d.). Title of page. Site Name. https://www.example.com/page

Reference, changing unarchived page:

Author, A. A. (n.d.). Title of page. Site Name. Retrieved Month Day, Year, from https://www.example.com/page

Parenthetical citation:

(Author, Year)

Narrative citation:

Author (Year)

Parenthetical citation of a quotation:

(Author, Year, para. 4)

Do not write Retrieved from in front of an ordinary URL. Do not use a copyright-footer year or a "last reviewed" stamp as the date. Do not list a whole site in the reference list. Do not treat CNN or BET News as The New York Times. A punctuation reminder lives on the APA cheat sheet.

What This Guide Covers (and What It Does Not)

This is an APA 7 source-type guide for a webpage on a website: a news-site story, an organization or government page, a hosted essay on a platform such as Medium, a comment on a news page, and the rare page that is designed to change. It is not a newspaper, magazine, journal, social-media, blog-as-periodical, or PDF-as-format tutorial.

Webpage, Whole Website, News Site, Newspaper, or Blog?

Students often paste one website line onto every URL they opened. APA splits those objects. A webpage gets a reference. A whole site usually does not. A CNN, HuffPost, or BET News story uses this webpage pattern. A New York Times story uses the newspaper pattern, even when you only ever saw it online. A named blog (Harvard Health Blog, APA Style Blog) is a periodical under §10.1: roman post title, italic blog name. Medium is a host site, not that blog pattern — Giovanetti stays on this page.

Cite the webpage when you…

  • Quoted or paraphrased a specific page, not the brand as a whole
  • Opened CNN, HuffPost, BET News, BBC News, Reuters, Vox, or another news website
  • Used an organization, agency, or government page with no better category
  • Read a hosted essay on Medium or a similar platform
  • Need a comment that lives on a news webpage

Use a different template when you…

  • Only mentioned a site in passing (Qualtrics, a vendor homepage)
  • Opened a newspaper website such as The New York Times
  • Cited a named blog as a periodical (italic blog title, roman post title)
  • Cited a journal article, report, or book that happens to have a URL
  • Used a social-media post, YouTube file, or Wikipedia entry as the object
APA 7 websites at a glance
What you openedAuthor elementSite nameDate and URL
Page with a byline on a host siteThe writer, invertedInclude the site nameSpecific date; URL; no retrieval date
Organization page with no bylineThe organizationOmit it when it repeats the authorSpecific date or n.d.; URL
Government page with no bylineThe responsible agencyParent agencies in the source slotSpecific date; URL
News website (CNN, HuffPost, BET News)The story writerCNN, HuffPost, BET News, BBC News, and the likeStory date; this webpage pattern
Newspaper websiteThe story writerItalic newspaper title — newspaper patternUse the newspaper guide
Named blog as a periodicalThe post authorItalic blog title; roman post titleNot this webpage pattern
Changing unarchived clock or wikiThe group or title, as the page showsOmit a repeated site namen.d. plus a retrieval date
Whole website, mentioned onlyNo reference-list authorName the site in the sentenceURL in parentheses in the text only

These rows are decision rules, not citations. Every full example below is an official APA Style string, or a clearly labelled template.

Do not invent n.d., a retrieval date, or a site name to fill an empty slot.

Keep official handbook strings even when a live page later moves or is revised.

The Official APA 7 Rule, from §10.16

Classroom APA in 2026 still means the seventh edition of the Publication Manual, published in 2020. There is no eighth edition to switch to. Section 10.16 is the webpage and website chapter. Dates for online works sit in §§9.13–9.15. Retrieval dates sit in §9.16. URLs sit in §§9.34–9.36. The free worked examples live on the APA Style webpage references page. Rutgers, Stonehill, and Master's University reprint the official notes this page follows:

APA Style notes on webpage titles, dates, and site names

Provide as specific a date as possible for the webpage.
Some online works note when the work was last updated. If this date is clearly attributable to the specific content you are citing rather than the overall website, use the updated date in the reference.
Do not include a date of last review in a reference because content that has been reviewed has not necessarily been changed. If a date of last review is noted on a work, ignore it for the purposes of the reference.
A copyright date, ©, is not to be used as the date for purposes of the reference.
Because the author of the webpage and the site name are the same, omit the site name from the source element to avoid repetition.
When contents of a page are designed to change over time but are not archived, include a retrieval date in the reference.

The APA Style creating a reference list handout — the sentence CSULB and Wheeling reprint — restates the date test in one line students actually need:

APA Style handout on webpage dates

For webpages and websites, use the date of last publication or last update. Do not use the copyright date from a webpage footer or the date of last review. If the date is unknown or cannot be determined, write "n.d." as the date.

Official News-Website Examples

A news website is not a newspaper. APA Style lists BBC News, BET News, Bloomberg, CNN, HuffPost, MSNBC, Reuters, Salon, and Vox in this category because those sites do not have an associated daily or weekly newspaper. The official examples are K. Toner on CNN, C. Bologna on HuffPost, and N. Roberts on BET News. On 13 September 2026 the Toner and Bologna URLs still opened; the official Roberts BET path now redirects to a BET tag page. Keep the handbook string. Do not invent a replacement URL.

APA Style notes on news websites versus newspapers

Use this format for articles from news websites. Common examples are BBC News, BET News, Bloomberg, CNN, HuffPost, MSNBC, Reuters, Salon, and Vox. These sites do not have associated daily or weekly newspapers.
Use the newspaper article category for articles from newspaper websites such as The New York Times or The Washington Post.

Official APA 7 news-website examples

Reference list (Toner, 2020):

Toner, K. (2020, September 24). When Covid-19 hit, he turned his newspaper route into a lifeline for senior citizens. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/us/coronavirus-newspaper-deliveryman-groceries-senior-citizens-cnnheroes-trnd/index.html

Reference list (Bologna, 2019):

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

Reference list (Roberts, 2020):

Roberts, N. (2020, June 10). Trayvon Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, qualifies to run for elected office. BET News. https://www.bet.com/news/national/2020/06/10/trayvon-martin-mother-sybrina-fulton-qualifies-for-office-florid.html

Parenthetical citations:

(Bologna, 2019; Roberts, 2020; Toner, 2020)

Narrative citations:

Bologna (2019), Roberts (2020), and Toner (2020)

Italicize the story title, not CNN, HuffPost, or BET News. Keep the story's own capitalization only where APA would (Covid-19 in the Toner title is the official string). Use the date the story prints, even when the URL path uses an earlier day. Do not "fix" Toner to December because a LibGuide did — Stonehill's December 4 date is not the official string.

Comment on a News Webpage

A comment is a different object from the story. Credit the commenter, date the comment, quote the comment title or the first 20 words, then identify the page it sits on. The official example is L. Owens on a HuffPost story.

APA Style notes on comments

Credit the person who left the comment as the author using the format that appears with the comment (i.e., a real name and/or a username). The example shows a real name.
Provide the comment title or up to the first 20 words of the comment in standard font. Then in square brackets write "Comment on the webpage" and the title of the webpage on which the comment appeared in sentence case and italics.
Link to the comment itself if possible. Otherwise, link to the webpage on which the comment appears. Either a full URL or a short URL is acceptable.

Official APA 7 comment example

Reference list (Owens, 2020):

Owens, L. (2020, October 7). I propose a bicycle race between Biden and Trump [Comment on the webpage Here's what voters make of President Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis]. HuffPost. https://www.spot.im/s/00QeiyApEIFa

Parenthetical citation:

(Owens, 2020)

Narrative citation:

Owens (2020)

Link the comment itself when you can. A short URL is acceptable. Do not list the story writer as the comment author. Stonehill reprints a longer HuffPost story URL for Owens; the official handbook string uses the short Spot.im address. Keep the official string.

Government Agency Author

On a government page with no personal byline, the author is the agency that wrote the page, not the cabinet department above it. Parent agencies move to the source slot so the in-text citation stays short. The official example is the National Institute of Mental Health page on anxiety disorders. On 13 September 2026 the official /index.shtml path still resolved (NIMH now redirects it to the same topic page without the filename).

APA Style notes on government webpage authors

For a page on a government website without individual authors, use the specific agency responsible for the webpage as the author.
The names of parent agencies not present in the author element appear in the source element (in the example, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health). This creates concise in-text citations and complete reference list entries.

Official APA 7 government webpage example

Reference list (NIMH, 2018):

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

Parenthetical citation:

(National Institute of Mental Health, 2018)

Narrative citation:

National Institute of Mental Health (2018)

Later parenthetical citation after you introduce NIMH:

(NIMH, 2018)

Do not put NIMH in the reference-list author slot. Spell the agency once, then abbreviate in later in-text citations under APA 7 §8.21: first parenthetical (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2018).

Organizational Author, and When to Drop the Site Name

If an organization wrote the page and the site is that same organization, write the name once. Repeating "World Health Organization" after the title is the usual mistake. The official example is the WHO fact sheet on the top 10 causes of death. The live WHO page has been revised since the handbook example (a 7 August 2024 refresh is visible on the current fact sheet). Keep the official 24 May 2018 string when you are copying the handbook. When you are citing the page you actually read, use the date that page prints.

APA Style notes on organization webpages

For a page from an organization's website without individual authors, use the name of the organization as the author.

Official APA 7 organizational webpage example

Reference list (World Health Organization, 2018):

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

Parenthetical citation:

(World Health Organization, 2018)

Narrative citation:

World Health Organization (2018)

Later parenthetical citation after you introduce WHO:

(WHO, 2018)

Keep the site name when it is a different brand from the author. Giovanetti wrote a page that lives on Medium, so Medium stays. WHO wrote a page that lives on who.int, so the site name goes. Stonehill's 9 December 2020 WHO date is not the official string.

Individual Author on a Host Site

When a page prints a personal byline, that person is the author even if a company hosts the file. The official individual-author example is F. Giovanetti on Medium.

APA Style notes on individual webpage authors

When individual author(s) are credited on the webpage, list them as the author in the reference.

Official APA 7 individual-author webpage example

Reference list (Giovanetti, 2019):

Giovanetti, F. (2019, November 16). Why we are so obsessed with personality types. Medium. https://medium.com/the-business-of-wellness/why-we-are-so-obsessed-with-personality-types-577450f9aee9

Parenthetical citation:

(Giovanetti, 2019)

Narrative citation:

Giovanetti (2019)

Invert the name, keep one word after the comma, and use initials. Do not add the Medium publication name (The Business of Wellness) as a second container. APA 7's webpage pattern has one site name, not a magazine-style stack.

Blog Post Versus Webpage

APA 7 §10.1 treats a blog as a periodical: the post title stays in roman sentence case, and the blog name is italic. That is why a Harvard Health Blog or APA Style Blog post does not use the italic-title webpage pattern on this page. Medium is the exception students miss. APA Style files Giovanetti as a webpage on a website, with Medium as the site name after an italic title. If the host looks like a platform (Medium, a university newsroom, a government topic page), stay here. If the host is a named blog with its own masthead, use the blog/periodical pattern instead — do not italicize the post title.

Blog-as-periodical template (not a real source)

Reference, named blog:

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of post in roman sentence case. Blog Name. https://www.example.com/post

Parenthetical citation:

(Author, Year)

No Date, Last Updated, and Retrieval Dates

Most webpages do not take a retrieval date. APA 7 dropped the old "Retrieved from" line for stable pages. You add Retrieved Month Day, Year, from only when the content is designed to change and the copy you used is not archived. The official example is the U.S. Census population clock. The retrieval date in that official string is 9 January 2020 — leave it as the handbook example; do not "update" it to today.

Official APA 7 retrieval-date example

Reference list (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.):

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/

Parenthetical citation:

(U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.)

Narrative citation:

U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.)

A stable page with no usable date still gets n.d. and does not get a retrieval date. That is a different case from the clock. Use the labelled template above, or see How to Cite a Source With No Date. Wikipedia and other unarchived, edited pages are the other common retrieval-date case; that workflow is in Wikipedia for Research.

  • Use the content date or last-updated date when it belongs to the page you cited, not the whole site chrome.
  • Ignore "last reviewed." Review is not revision.
  • Ignore a footer copyright year. APA Style says a copyright date is not a publication date.
  • Write `n.d.` when you cannot determine a date. Do not guess.
  • Add a retrieval date only for inherently changing, unarchived works (a live dashboard, a Facebook profile, an unarchived wiki).
  • Do not write `Retrieved from` on Toner, WHO, NIMH, or any other stable page.

Two Pages from the Same Website

Each webpage is its own reference. If you cite two pages from the same organization in the same year, APA 7 §8.19 letters the years (2019a, 2019b) so the in-text citation can point at one entry. Order those entries by title. Do not collapse two pages into one "website" line.

Same-site lettered-year templates (not a real source)

First page, same year:

Organization Name. (Yeara). Title that sorts first. https://www.example.com/a

Second page, same year:

Organization Name. (Yearb). Title that sorts second. https://www.example.com/b

Parenthetical citations:

(Organization Name, Yeara, Yearb)

When There Is No Individual Author

Look harder before you decide a webpage has no author. Logos, "About" pages, and bylines in the page source usually reveal a group. APA's missing-information table puts the title first only after that search fails. How to Cite a Source With No Author is the general rule; the webpage version is the same table with an italic title. A missing publisher name is a different problem — see How to Cite a Website With No Publisher.

APA 7 missing-author webpage templates (not a real source)

Reference, title first:

Title of page. (Year, Month Day). Site Name. https://www.example.com/page

Parenthetical citation:

(Title of Page, Year)

Reference, title and no date:

Title of page. (n.d.). Site Name. https://www.example.com/page

In the in-text citation, title-case the shortened italic title even though the reference list uses sentence case. Do not write Anonymous unless the page itself is signed Anonymous.

Whole Websites Stay in the Sentence

If you only mention a site — you built a survey in Qualtrics, you browsed a vendor homepage, you named a platform — APA does not want a reference-list entry. The official whole-website page is one paragraph long because the rule is that short.

APA Style notes on whole websites

Do not create references or in-text citations for whole websites.
To mention a website in general, and not any particular information on that site, provide the name of the website in the text and include the URL in parentheses.

Official APA Style whole-website mention

In the text only (no reference list entry):

We created our survey using Qualtrics (https://www.qualtrics.com).

The moment you quote or paraphrase a specific page on that site, you have a webpage reference again. Qualtrics-the-platform is a mention. A Qualtrics help article you cited is a webpage.

In-Text Citations for Webpages

The in-text citation must point at the reference you wrote. Use the same author words and the year or n.d.. Webpages almost never have page numbers, so a paraphrase is usually (Toner, 2020) with no locator. A direct quotation needs a locator: a paragraph number, a section heading, or both (APA 7 §8.28).

In-text patterns for the official examples

Parenthetical paraphrase:

(Toner, 2020)

Narrative paraphrase:

Toner (2020)

Parenthetical quotation (template):

(Toner, 2020, para. 4)

Three official news stories in one parenthetical:

(Bologna, 2019; Roberts, 2020; Toner, 2020)

Group author, first then abbreviated:

(National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2018), then (NIMH, 2018)

Do not paste the URL into the parenthetical citation. The URL belongs at the end of the reference-list entry. Do not invent a page number from your printout or browser.

Finding the Pieces on a Webpage

Everything the reference needs is on the page, in the byline, or in the address bar. You do not need a third-party citation gadget to harvest it.

  • Author: the byline, byline link, or organization logo. Check About if the page is unsigned.
  • Date: the story date, posted date, or last-updated line that belongs to this content. Skip footer copyright and last-reviewed stamps.
  • Title: the page's own headline, sentence-cased and italicized. Not the browser-tab marketing string if it differs.
  • Site name: the site you are on, unless those words already appeared as the author.
  • URL: the address bar or a permalink if the page offers one. Keep https://. Do not add a period after it.
  • DOI: if a webpage also has a DOI, use the DOI and see How to Use DOIs. Do not pair a DOI with a second URL.

How This Differs from MLA and Chicago

The same URL is a different object in each style. MLA 9 puts the page title in quotation marks, italicizes the site, often drops https://, and may add an access date. Chicago 18 often starts a note with the page title, treats a bibliography line as optional, and uses an access date only when no publication date exists. APA italicizes the page title, keeps https://, and almost never wants an access date. Do not borrow MLA's access date or Chicago's optional bibliography onto an APA reference list. The worked MLA and Chicago pages are How to Cite a Website in MLA and How to Cite a Website in Chicago.

Common Mistakes When Citing a Website in APA

  • Writing `Retrieved from` on a stable page. APA 7 deleted that phrase unless you also need a retrieval date.
  • Using a copyright-footer year or "last reviewed" date. Those are not publication dates.
  • Repeating the organization as the site name. WHO, APA, and NIMH already occupy the author slot.
  • *Citing The New York Times with the CNN/HuffPost/BET webpage pattern.* That is a newspaper reference.
  • Treating a named blog as this webpage pattern. Roman post title, italic blog name.
  • Listing a whole website in the reference list. Name it in the sentence instead.
  • Title-casing the italic webpage title. Sentence case in the reference; title case only in a title-only in-text citation.
  • Inventing an individual author when the page is unsigned. Use the group, then the title.
  • Putting a period after the URL.
  • Adding an access date because MLA taught you to. APA retrieval dates are rarer and mean something else.
  • Updating an official handbook example to a live revision date or a redirected URL. Cite the copy you read; leave Toner, Roberts, and WHO 2018 as the official strings.
  • Citing a journal article, report, or book as a webpage just because you opened a URL. Use the category of the work.

Generate the APA website reference

Paste the URL into the APA generator when you want the same author, date, italic title, optional site name, and URL pattern filled in. Then check the author against the page, drop a repeated site name, and delete any retrieval date the tool added to a stable page.

Open the APA citation generatorWebsite in APA, worked example

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a retrieval date for a website in APA 7?
Almost never. Include Retrieved Month Day, Year, from only when the page is designed to change and is not archived, as in the official U.S. Census population-clock example. Stable stories such as Toner (2020) and fact sheets such as WHO (2018) end with the URL alone.
Should I write Retrieved from before the URL?
No. APA 7 removed that phrase for ordinary webpages. The only time Retrieved appears is as part of a retrieval date: Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://www.census.gov/popclock/
What if the webpage has no author?
Use the organization or agency first. Most "no author" pages are group-authored. If no group is responsible, move the italic title to the front of the reference and use a shortened italic title in the in-text citation. Do not write Anonymous unless the page is signed that way.
What if the webpage has no date?
Write n.d. in both the reference and the in-text citation. Do not use a footer copyright year or a last-reviewed stamp. Add a retrieval date only if the page is also designed to change.
Do I italicize the page title or the website name?
Italicize the webpage title. Leave the site name in roman title case (CNN, HuffPost, BET News, Medium). Newspaper titles are the exception, and those references belong on the newspaper guide. Named blogs invert the italics: roman post title, italic blog name.
When do I omit the site name?
When it repeats the author. World Health Organization. (2018, May 24). The top 10 causes of death. is complete without a second World Health Organization. Keep Medium after Giovanetti because Medium is not the author.
How do I cite an entire website in APA?
You usually do not. Name the site in the sentence and put the URL in parentheses, as in the official Qualtrics mention. Create a reference only when you used a specific page on that site.
Is a CNN or BET article cited like a New York Times article?
No. CNN, HuffPost, BET News, BBC News, and Vox use this webpage pattern. The New York Times and The Washington Post use the newspaper pattern even when you read them online.
How do I cite a quotation from a webpage that has no page numbers?
Keep the author and year and add a paragraph number or section heading, such as (Toner, 2020, para. 4). Do not invent page numbers from your browser's print dialog.
Can I shorten a long URL?
Yes when the short form still opens the same page. APA 7 §9.36 allows either a full URL or a working short URL. The official Owens comment uses the short Spot.im address. Do not invent a short link that you did not test.