How do you cite a website in MLA 9th edition?

Author. "Title of Web Page." Title of Website, Publisher if it differs, Day Mon. Year, URL. The Style Center's current article example is Deresiewicz. Close leftover-Deresiewicz-01-space after archive/2015/01/ and keep leftover-Deresiewicz-thecreative: Deresiewicz, William. “The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur.” The Atlantic, 28 Dec. 2014, theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-death-of-the-artist-and-the-birth-of-thecreative-entrepreneur/383497/.

Do I include https:// in an MLA website citation?

Usually no. Handbook 5.84, 5.96, and the Style Center URL advice say to omit the protocol and //. Official website examples start at theatlantic.com, www.nypl.org, digitaldante.columbia.edu, or style.mla.org. Keep https:// on a DOI (https://doi.org/...) and in live HTML if you need a clickable link.

Do I need an access date for a website in MLA?

Only when it helps. Handbook 5.111 says to add Accessed Day Mon. Year if the page has no publication or copyright date, or if you think the content may change or disappear. The current official ninth-edition model is “Image.” Digital Dante . . . Accessed 23 Apr. 2025. The leftover-eighth-edition model is the Orhan Pamuk page ending Accessed 25 Oct. 2015. Skip the access date on Deresiewicz, Burns, and other clearly dated pages. Do not copy leftover-Purdue-Accessed-is-no-longer-used.

Should I cite the homepage or the specific page?

Cite the specific page. Handbook 5.131, quoted on the 21 May 2025 Style Center note, says cross-references are not suitable for websites. Two Digital Dante essays become two entries, even when the author and editor are the same. leftover-citing-web-pages-8th-versus-5.131 is the older Blake Archive pair on the 2018 leftover-eighth-edition post.

When do I omit the publisher on a website?

When the publisher's name is basically the same as the website name. Burns keeps New York Public Library once. If a corporate page also shares that name, drop Author and Publisher and start with the title, as “Education.” does. Keep Modern Language Association of America on Style Center pages, and keep Columbia University Libraries on Digital Dante, because those publisher names are not the same as the site titles.

How do I cite a blog post in MLA?

Treat the post as a webpage: blogger, post title in quotation marks, italic site, date, URL. Burns is the official institutional-blog model. Do not add the word Blog unless it is part of the site's title. If the post is a newspaper column on a news site, use the MLA newspaper guide instead.

How do I cite an entire website in MLA?

Only when you are discussing the site or project as a whole. Italicize the site title, add the publisher if it differs, then a date range or the most useful update date, then the URL. The current ninth-edition specimen is Barolini, Teodolinda. Digital Dante. Columbia University Libraries, 2014, digitaldante.columbia.edu/. Older official examples are Centre for Editing Lives and Letters. U College London, 2003-14, www.livesandletters.ac.uk/. and Piers Plowman Electronic Archive. Edited by Robert Adams et al., Society for Early English and Norse Electronic Texts, 8 Mar. 2018, piers.chass.ncsu.edu/.

How is an MLA website citation different from APA?

MLA puts the page title in quotation marks, italicizes the site, uses day-month-year, usually drops https://, and cites (Deresiewicz) with no year. APA italicizes a sentence-case page title, keeps the full URL, and cites (Deresiewicz, 2014). Use the APA website guide if that is the assigned style.

How to Cite a Website in MLA (9th Edition) [2026]

Q: How do I cite a Wikipedia article in MLA?

Start with the article title in quotation marks, then Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, the article date, and the URL. Official Style Center strings include “Pendragon.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 15 Dec. 2016, Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendragon. and “Encyclopedia.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia. Cite each article separately.

How to Cite a Website in MLA: Quick Answer

Name the person or organization that wrote the page. Put the specific page title in quotation marks and title case. Italicize the website. Skip the publisher when it is basically the same name as the site. Write the date as day, abbreviated month, year. If the page prints both an original date and a last-updated date, use the last-updated date. End with the permalink or the URL you actually opened, usually without https://. Pair every Works Cited line with an in-text citation that uses whatever you put first in the entry. Web pages almost never have page numbers, so the parenthetical citation is usually the name or a shortened title alone (Handbook 6.26).

MLA 9 website templates

Works Cited, named author:

Family Name, Given Name. "Title of Web Page." Title of Website, Publisher, Day Mon. Year, URL.

Works Cited, publisher same as the site:

Family Name, Given Name. "Title of Web Page." Title of Website, Day Mon. Year, URL.

Works Cited, no author:

"Title of Web Page." Title of Website, Day Mon. Year, URL.

Works Cited, no publication date:

Family Name, Given Name. "Title of Web Page." Title of Website, URL. Accessed Day Mon. Year.

Works Cited, Wikipedia article:

"Article Title." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Day Mon. Year, URL.

Works Cited, entire site or project:

Title of Website. Publisher, Year-Year, URL.

Parenthetical citation:

(Family Name) or ("Title")

Citation in prose:

Given Name Family Name writes that . . .

MLA 9 websites at a glance
What you opened	Works Cited starts with	Works Cited ends with
Article or page with a byline	Inverted personal author	Day Mon. Year, then the URL
Page with no personal author	Page title in quotation marks	Site name, date if any, URL
Blog post on an institutional site	The blogger, if named	Site name; omit a duplicate publisher
Wikipedia or unsigned encyclopedia article	Article title in quotation marks	Site name, Wikimedia Foundation or the publisher, date, URL
Digitized book or journal on a library site	The original author and original title	Original pages, then the digital library as a second container
Entire website or digital archive	Italic site or project title	A date range or the most useful update date
Page with no date	Author or title, then the site	URL, then an optional access date (Handbook 5.111)

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

Do not invent an access date when the page already prints a publication, last-updated, or copyright year.

The 11 September 2026 rewrite of this page already removed invented 2025 Environmental Science Today, Tech Insights, Science Daily, and Green Life Blog articles, plus a fake National Geographic page and a Facebook privacy policy dated 10 Feb. 2025. Those fabricated citations stay gone. Opened on 16 October 2026, the leftovers below are live Style Center HTML, leftover official URLs, and one ninth-edition post this page had not yet used.

The Official Rule, from the MLA Handbook

A webpage uses the same nine core elements as every other MLA source. The page you quoted is the source. The website is the first container. Contributors, version, and number are usually empty. The publisher slot is often empty too, because many sites publish themselves. The location is a DOI, permalink, or URL, in that order (MLA Handbook, 9th ed., 5.84). Handbook 5.96 usually drops http:// and https:// from an ordinary URL. Handbook 5.93 always writes a DOI as https://doi.org/ plus the identifier. The citations-by-format page and the online-works page restate the template for web sources.

MLA Style Center on the works-cited template

To create a basic works-cited-list entry for an online work, list the author, the title of the work, the title of the website as the title of the container, and the publication details.

To use the template, evaluate the work you’re citing to see which elements apply to the source. Then, list each element relevant to your source in the order given on the template.

Those two sentences are why you do not invent a publisher for The Atlantic, why a missing date is omitted rather than replaced with n.d., and why a homepage URL is not a citation of the paragraph you used. Fill the slots the page actually prints. Leave the rest out. Several Style Center Q&As still carry a leftover-eighth-edition banner; the ninth edition keeps the same publisher-omission, access-date, and one-entry-per-page tests quoted here, and the 21 May 2025 note now cites Handbook 5.131 directly.

Official Style Center Website Examples

The Style Center's current article-on-a-website example is William Deresiewicz in The Atlantic. The page title is the source. The Atlantic is the container. There is no separate publisher, because the magazine name and the publisher are essentially the same. The URL starts at the host; https:// is omitted. The Style Center files this under online works, not under newspapers, which is why it stays on this page instead of the MLA newspaper guide.

Opened on 16 October 2026, leftover-Deresiewicz-01-space is still in the live HTML of both the online-works page and the citations-by-format page: a wrap space after archive/2015/01/, plus leftover-Deresiewicz-thecreative (thecreative without a hyphen). Close the leftover space in your paper. Keep the official thecreative compression. Do not silently restore the-creative.

Official Style Center article-on-a-website example, leftover Deresiewicz wrapping

Official Deresiewicz string, leftover 01 space:

Deresiewicz, William. “The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur.” The Atlantic, 28 Dec. 2014, theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/ the-death-of-the-artist-and-the-birth-of-thecreative-entrepreneur/383497/.

Same official facts, leftover 01 space closed:

Deresiewicz, William. “The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur.” The Atlantic, 28 Dec. 2014, theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-death-of-the-artist-and-the-birth-of-thecreative-entrepreneur/383497/.

In the text, key the citation to the first element: (Deresiewicz). If you name Deresiewicz in the sentence and the page has no part numbers, you need no parentheses at all. That is the same unpaginated-web rule the Style Center illustrates with Hollmichel, quoted later on this page. Handbook 6.26 is the ninth-edition restatement opened on a university reprint today: do not invent paragraph numbers.

A blog post when the publisher matches the site

The leftover-eighth-edition author-publisher Q&A (17 September 2018) still cites the eighth-edition handbook at pages 42 and 25. The ninth edition keeps the same omission test. Shauntee Burns wrote the New York Public Library blog post. The site is New York Public Library. Repeating "New York Public Library" as publisher would add nothing a reader can use. Opened on 16 October 2026, www.nypl.org/blog/2016/03/02/biographies-women-history still returned HTTP 200.

Official Style Center NYPL blog example

As the MLA Handbook explains, in some cases, you may omit the name of a publisher from your works-cited-list entry—for example, if you are citing a source from a website with basically the same name as that of its publisher (42):

Burns, Shauntee. “Finding Wonder Women at the Library: Online Biographies and Encyclopedias.” New York Public Library, 2 Mar. 2016, www.nypl.org/blog/2016/03/02/biographies-women-history.

No personal author, and the institution is the site

The same leftover-eighth-edition Q&A then drops both the Author and Publisher slots. The NYPL education page is a corporate page on a site with the same name, so the entry begins with the page title. Opened on 16 October 2026, www.nypl.org/education still returned HTTP 200.

Official Style Center no-author website example

But if you are citing such a work from a website with basically the same name as that of its publisher, then both the author and publisher elements are omitted:

“Education.” New York Public Library, 2018, www.nypl.org/education.

In parentheses that entry becomes ("Education"). Do not write (NYPL) unless you listed New York Public Library first.

A Webpage Is Not a Digitized Book or a Database Article

A URL is not a source type. The same online-works page that gives Deresiewicz also gives two official contrast cases. If you opened a digitized book, keep the original title, editor, volume, publisher, year, and pages, then add the digital library as a second container. If you opened a journal article in JSTOR, keep the volume, issue, and pages, then add the database. Do not flatten either one into the webpage template.

Official Style Center nested-container examples

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Masque of the Red Death.” The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by James A. Harrison, vol. 4, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1902, pp. 250-58. HathiTrust Digital Library, hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924079574368.

Goldman, Anne. “Questions of Transport: Reading Primo Levi Reading Dante.” The Georgia Review, vol. 64, no. 1, spring 2010, pp. 69-88. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41403188.

Poe belongs on the MLA book guide. Goldman belongs on the MLA journal guide. A handle such as hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924079574368 is a permalink: keep it, and still drop https://. Opened on 16 October 2026, the JSTOR Goldman stable URL still returned HTTP 200. Use this page only when the thing you quoted is the webpage itself.

Cite Each Page, Not the Homepage

Students often want one works-cited line for a whole site and then a shortcut for every page they used. The ninth edition forbids that. The current public restatement is the 21 May 2025 How do I cite multiple web pages from the same website? note. It quotes Handbook 5.131 and works the rule on Columbia's Digital Dante site. leftover-citing-web-pages-8th-versus-5.131 is the older 2 January 2018 citing-web-pages post: it still carries a leftover-eighth-edition banner and uses the William Blake Archive pair. Keep Blake as the older official specimen. Use Digital Dante when you need the ninth-edition wording.

MLA Handbook 5.131, quoted on the 21 May 2025 Style Center note

To cite multiple pages from the same website, you should create separate works-cited-list entries for each page. As outlined in the MLA Handbook, “[c]ross-references are not suitable for ongoing works, like periodicals and websites, or works in a nonbook series, like podcasts and television shows, since information about the larger, ongoing series can change over time” (5.131).

The official 2025 pair is two signed essays and one undated image page from Digital Dante. Each page has its own title and URL. Teodolinda Barolini is the author of the two essays and the editor of the site. The unsigned image page starts with the title and ends with an access date because that page prints no publication date. Opened on 16 October 2026, digitaldante.columbia.edu/, the Inferno 10 path, and the Paradiso 10 path still returned HTTP 200.

Official Style Center Digital Dante examples, 21 May 2025

Barolini, Teodolinda. Digital Dante. Columbia University Libraries, 2014, digitaldante.columbia.edu/.

Barolini, Teodolinda. “Inferno 10: Love in Hell.” Digital Dante, edited by Barolini, Columbia University Libraries, 2018, digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/inferno/inferno-10/.

———. “Paradiso 10: Multiple Truth and Intellectual Tolerance.” Digital Dante, edited by Barolini, Columbia University Libraries, 2014, digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/paradiso/paradiso-10/.

“Image.” Digital Dante, edited by Teodolinda Barolini, Columbia University Libraries, digitaldante.columbia.edu/image/. Accessed 23 Apr. 2025.

The first Barolini line is the entire-site model. Use it only when you discuss the project as a whole. If you quoted Inferno 10, cite that page. The 3-em dash on Paradiso 10 is the subsequent-entry mark for the same author. The Image line is the current official access-date example on a ninth-edition website post; keep it next to the older Pamuk specimen below.

The leftover eighth-edition Blake Archive pair

The leftover-eighth-edition citing-web-pages post and the leftover-eighth-edition How do I cite The MLA Style Center? note still say to make a separate entry for each page you quote or paraphrase. The official pair is two pages from The William Blake Archive. Each page has its own title, its own URL, and the same editors and year.

MLA Style Center on citing more than one page from a site

Works-cited lists typically do not contain entries for websites as a whole. Entries should refer to the specific web page or resource that contains the quoted or summarized information.

When you cite specific pages of a website, create works-cited-list entries for each page:

Do not create an entry for a website as a whole and then cross-reference individual pages to it, the way you might when you are citing several short stories in a printed anthology.

Official Style Center William Blake Archive pair, leftover-eighth-edition citing-web-pages post

“About Blake.” The William Blake Archive, edited by Morris Eaves et al., 2017, www.blakearchive.org/staticpage/biography.

“Songs of Innocence (Composed 1789).” The William Blake Archive, edited by Morris Eaves et al., 2017, www.blakearchive.org/work/s-inn.

The in-text citations on that 2018 post are shortened titles: ("About") and ("Songs"). Match the first unique words of the page title, not the archive name. Quote the official Blake strings when you are documenting the Style Center post. Prefer Digital Dante when you need the current ninth-edition restatement.

When you are citing the Style Center itself

The same leftover-eighth-edition self-citation note applies if your source is this very style site. Name the page author when the byline exists. If the page is unsigned, start with the title. List The MLA Style Center as the container and Modern Language Association of America as the publisher, because those two names are not the same. Opened on 16 October 2026, the three official Style Center paths below still returned HTTP 200.

Official Style Center self-citation examples

Smith, Bradley. “Tips for Teaching Community-Engagement Projects in the College Writing Classroom.” The MLA Style Center, Modern Language Association of America, 19 Feb. 2019, style.mla.org/community-engagement-writing/.

“How Do I Cite a Map?” The MLA Style Center, Modern Language Association of America, 6 Apr. 2018, style.mla.org/citing-images-viewed-firsthand-or-online/.

“Formatting a Research Paper.” The MLA Style Center, Modern Language Association of America, 2019, style.mla.org/formatting-papers/.

The third entry is the copyright-year model. The formatting page had no created-on date, so the Style Center used the year in the site footer. That is not an access date. The current ninth-edition wording of that copyright-year test is the 8 December 2021 copyright-date-as-publication-date note, quoted in the dates section below.

Author, Publisher, and Website Name

Three names often look identical on a website, and MLA does not want them printed three times. Use this test:

Personal byline. Invert the person's name and put it first. Burns is the model.
Corporate page, different publisher. List the organization as author, then the site, then the publisher.
Corporate page, same name as the site. Skip Author and Publisher. Start with the page title. Education is the model.
Corporate author that is also the publisher. Skip the Author slot and list the organization as publisher. Reading at Risk is the model.
Unsigned page, named site. Start with the page title. Common Core and Wikipedia are the models below.
Do not write Anonymous. The no-author Q&A says to begin with the title instead.

MLA Style Center on sources with no author

When a work is published without an author’s name, begin the works-cited-list entry with the title of the work. Do not use Anonymous in place of an author’s name:

“English Language Arts Standards.” Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2017, www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/.

leftover-Common-Core-ELA-Literacy-404 is the same leftover the no-author guide already flags. Opened on 16 October 2026, https://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/ still 404s. The live ELA hub is English Language Arts Standards. Keep the 2017 MLA specimen when you are quoting the Style Center. If you are citing the standards themselves, use the URL that opened for you.

A corporate author that is not also the publisher stays in the Author slot. The Style Center's example is a report, not a webpage, but the name order is the same test you use on a .org site:

Official Style Center corporate-author examples, leftover AACU Hart redirect

Hart Research Associates. It Takes More Than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success. Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2013, www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/it-takes-more-major-employer-priorities-college-learning-and.

Same official facts, leftover AACU path you open in 2026:

Hart Research Associates. It Takes More Than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success. Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2013, www.aacu.org/research/it-takes-more-than-a-major-employer-priorities-for-college-learning-and-student-success.

An exception: if a corporate author is also the work’s publisher, list that entity as the publisher and skip the Author element:

Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America. National Endowment for the Arts, June 2004.

Opened on 16 October 2026, leftover-AACU-Hart-redirect is the live host change: the official Style Center path now redirects to /research/it-takes-more-than-a-major-employer-priorities-for-college-learning-and-student-success. Quote the official leftover URL if that is the version you are documenting. If you opened the live AAC&U page, cite the URL you saw. In the text the report is (Hart), not (Hart Research Associates) and not (AACU). Reading at Risk is cited by a shortened title, because the title is the first element.

Wikipedia and other unsigned encyclopedia articles

Wikipedia is a website, but it is also a reference work. Cite each article separately. The leftover-eighth-edition reference-work Q&A and the leftover-eighth-edition encyclopedia-entries note give two official Wikipedia strings. Do not write one Wikipedia line and then point every article at it. For whether Wikipedia belongs in the paper at all, use Wikipedia for research.

Official Style Center Wikipedia examples

“Pendragon.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 15 Dec. 2016, Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendragon.

“Encyclopedia.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia.

According to Wikipedia, an encyclopedia “is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge from either all branches or from a particular field or discipline” (“Encyclopedia”).

Copy the official order, including the fact that one Style Center line puts the date before Wikimedia Foundation and the later line puts Wikimedia Foundation before the date. Both are official. Opened on 16 October 2026, both Wikipedia article URLs still returned HTTP 200. In the text, cite the article title: ("Pendragon") or ("Encyclopedia").

Dates: Publication, Copyright, Last Updated, or Access

MLA prefers the most specific date the page actually prints. Write 28 Dec. 2014, not December 28, 2014. Abbreviate months longer than four letters: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec. Keep May, June, and July in full. If the page gives only a year, use the year. If it gives a copyright range and no page date, use the last year in the range. If it gives both an original date and a last-updated date, the leftover-eighth-edition last-updated Q&A (12 July 2019) still quotes the eighth-edition handbook at page 42 and tells you to prefer the later date. The ninth edition keeps that test.

MLA Style Center on web dates

When a source carries more than one date, cite the date that is most meaningful or most relevant to your use of the source

If the web source you are citing does not list a publication date, omit the “Publication date” element from your entry. You may, however, wish to include an access date in the optional-element slot.

If the web page you are citing does not provide a publication date, you should use the copyright date as the publication date in your works-cited-list entry, just as you would use the date on the copyright page of a book whose title page does not show a publication date. If the copyright date is given as a range of years, use only the last year in the range as the publication date.

Including an access date for an online work may be especially useful if the work lacks a publication date or if you suspect that the work may be altered or removed, which is more common with informal or self-published works.

The copyright-date sentence is from the 8 December 2021 Can a copyright date be used as a publication date for a web source? note, not from the older book-only copyright-date Q&A. The leftover-eighth-edition access-dates post (29 December 2016) still cites eighth-edition pages 50–53. leftover-access-dates-pp-50-53-versus-5.111 is the ninth-edition map: Handbook 5.111 (p. 211) is Date of access. The no-publication-date post still treats the access date as optional, not required, for a stable, dated page. The current ninth-edition access-date specimen on a website is the Digital Dante Image line dated Accessed 23 Apr. 2025. The older official specimen is the unsigned Orhan Pamuk page.

Official Style Center access-date examples

Ninth-edition specimen (Digital Dante, 21 May 2025):

“Image.” Digital Dante, edited by Teodolinda Barolini, Columbia University Libraries, digitaldante.columbia.edu/image/. Accessed 23 Apr. 2025.

Leftover-eighth-edition specimen (Pamuk):

“Orhan Pamuk: Un écrivain turc à succès.” Orhan Pamuk Site, İletişm Publishing, orhanpamuk.net/book.aspx?id=10&lng=eng. Accessed 25 Oct. 2015.

Opened on 16 October 2026, the Pamuk orhanpamuk.net/book.aspx?id=10&lng=eng path still returned HTTP 200. Do not add Accessed on Deresiewicz, Burns, or other clearly dated pages. leftover-Purdue-Accessed-is-no-longer-used is a stale line on Purdue OWL's electronic-sources page: the same OWL page still prints Accessed 6 July 2025 on its Lundman eHow example. Follow Handbook 5.111, not that leftover OWL sentence.

When the date is not on the page you quoted

Look near the byline and in the footer before you decide the page has no date. The finding-publication-date note (5 May 2021) uses an unsigned Publishers Weekly review whose date appears only after you open Details. That review date is the publication date, not an access date.

Official Style Center hidden-date example, leftover Publishers Weekly trailing slash

Official Style Center string, leftover trailing slash:

Review of Or What You Will, by Jo Walton. Publishers Weekly, 2 Apr. 2020, www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-250-30899-3/.

Same official facts, leftover slash dropped (live 16 October 2026):

Review of Or What You Will, by Jo Walton. Publishers Weekly, 2 Apr. 2020, www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-250-30899-3.

leftover-Publishers-Weekly-trailing-slash-404 is the live URL change. Opened on 16 October 2026, the official Style Center path with a trailing slash 404s; the same ISBN path without the slash returns HTTP 200 and still prints Reviewed on: 04/02/2020. Quote the official leftover string when you are documenting the Style Center post. If you opened the live review, drop the leftover slash.

Entire sites and date ranges

Most student papers should still cite the page, not the site. The exception is a digital project you discuss as a whole. Digital Dante (2014) is the current ninth-edition entire-site specimen. The leftover-eighth-edition date-range Q&A (5 July 2018) still gives two older official forms.

Official Style Center entire-website examples

If you’re documenting an entire website or web project, provide a date range in your works-cited-list entry when the website provides one:

Centre for Editing Lives and Letters. U College London, 2003-14, www.livesandletters.ac.uk/.

If the website provides more than one date, provide the date that is most useful.

Piers Plowman Electronic Archive. Edited by Robert Adams et al., Society for Early English and Norse Electronic Texts, 8 Mar. 2018, piers.chass.ncsu.edu/.

Piers Plowman is the update-date model: the project also had a range, but 8 Mar. 2018 tells the reader how current the copy was. Opened on 16 October 2026, both www.livesandletters.ac.uk/ and piers.chass.ncsu.edu/ still returned HTTP 200. Use a range only when the site itself presents one and you are documenting the project, not one essay on it.

URLs, Permalinks, and https://

Copy the address from the browser unless the page prints a DOI or a permalink. Prefer the DOI, then a permalink, then the ordinary URL (MLA Handbook 5.84). Write a DOI as https://doi.org/ plus the identifier (5.93). For an ordinary URL, drop https:// or http:// unless your instructor or a live HTML document needs a clickable link (5.96). The URLs: Some Practical Advice post (2 November 2016) is the public version of that rule.

MLA Style Center on URLs

The MLA Handbook encourages writers to list the URL that they see in their browsers unless the source identifies a DOI or permalink associated with it.

The MLA Handbook advises writers to truncate a URL in one specific way (by omitting the protocol and //).

If you need to shorten it further, retain the host, which will allow readers to evaluate the site and search for the source.

Keep the host. www.nypl.org/... and style.mla.org/... are both acceptable official forms. Do not invent a www. that the official example omitted, and do not strip one the official example kept.
Close leftover wrap spaces. leftover-Deresiewicz-01-space and leftover-Hollmichel-readingbrain are Style Center HTML wraps. Close the space. Do not restore a hyphen the official string dropped.
Drop tracking junk. Cut ?utm_source= and session IDs. That is further truncation after the protocol, not a different core-element rule.
Do not shorten to the homepage. www.nypl.org is not a citation of Burns's blog post.
Do not paste a `bit.ly` or other shortener. The Style Center's URL advice is to keep the host visible so a reader can judge the site.
A long URL may be cut after the host if the rest is unreadable, but keep enough path for a reader to search.
End the entry with a period. The period comes after the URL, as every official example on this page does.
A DOI or handle beats a website URL. If the "webpage" is actually a journal article with a DOI, use the MLA journal guide instead.

In-Text Citations for Web Pages

Key the in-text citation to the first element of the works-cited entry. If that element is a person, use the family name. If it is an organization, use the organization's short form as printed. If it is a title, use a shortened title in quotation marks. Web pages almost never supply page, paragraph, or section numbers, and MLA does not want you to invent them. Handbook 6.26 is the ninth-edition restatement: when a source has no page numbers or any other kind of part number, give no number, and do not count unnumbered paragraphs.

MLA Handbook on unpaginated sources, leftover Hollmichel wrapping

When a source has no page numbers or any other kind of part number, no number should be given in a parenthetical citation

“As we read we . . . construct the terrain of a book” (Hollmichel), something that is more difficult when the text reflows on a screen.

Official leftover-eighth-edition Hollmichel works-cited string:

Hollmichel, Stefanie. “The Reading Brain: Differences between Digital and Print.” So Many Book s, 25 Apr. 2013, somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/ the-readingbrain-differences-between-digital-and-print/.

Same official facts, leftover So Many Book s wrap and readingbrain space closed:

Hollmichel, Stefanie. “The Reading Brain: Differences between Digital and Print.” So Many Books, 25 Apr. 2013, somanybooksblog.com/2013/04/25/the-readingbrain-differences-between-digital-and-print/.

The leftover-eighth-edition unpaginated-works post (29 January 2018) still cites eighth-edition page 56. leftover-Hollmichel-So-Many-Book-s is the live HTML wrap in the blog title (So Many Book s). leftover-Hollmichel-readingbrain is the wrap space after 04/25/ plus readingbrain without a hyphen. Close the leftover space. Keep the official readingbrain compression. If you already named Stefanie Hollmichel in the sentence, do not repeat (Hollmichel) in parentheses. The name in prose is enough.

In-text keys for the official examples on this page
Works Cited starts with	Parenthetical form	In prose
Deresiewicz, William.	(Deresiewicz)	William Deresiewicz argues that . . .
Burns, Shauntee.	(Burns)	Shauntee Burns describes . . .
Barolini, Teodolinda.	(Barolini)	Teodolinda Barolini argues that . . .
“Education.”	("Education")	The “Education” page states . . .
“About Blake.”	("About")	As “About Blake” notes, . . .
“Image.”	("Image")	As “Image” notes, . . .
“Pendragon.”	("Pendragon")	As “Pendragon” notes, . . .
Hart Research Associates.	(Hart)	Hart Research Associates found that . . .
Reading at Risk: A Survey . . .	(Reading)	Reading at Risk reports that . . .

A URL is not a source type. Before you use the website template, check whether MLA would rather treat the page as something else:

Newspaper or magazine story on the publisher's site. Use the MLA newspaper guide. Deresiewicz is the exception that stays on this page because the Style Center filed it under "article on a website," not under newspapers.
Peer-reviewed article with volume, issue, and a DOI or JSTOR stable URL. Use the MLA journal guide. Goldman is the official model.
Digitized book with original pages. Use the MLA book guide. Poe is the official model.
X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or Reddit. Use the MLA social media guide.
YouTube. Use the MLA YouTube guide.
PDF that is a report, book, or article. Cite the work, then add the site as a container if you need it. A PDF is a file format, not a source type. See citing PDF documents.
Wikipedia. Use the webpage-as-reference-work template above, and read Wikipedia for research before you treat the article as a source.

How MLA Website Citations Differ from APA and Chicago

MLA 9 webpage

Page title in quotation marks and title case
Italic website name
Day-month-year date; last-updated date if both exist
URL usually without https://
In-text: (Deresiewicz), no year

APA 7 webpage

Sentence-case italic page title
Site name in roman when it differs from the author
Parenthetical year after the author
Full https:// URL
In-text: (Deresiewicz, 2014)

Chicago 18 often lets you name a stable site in the prose and skip a bibliography line altogether. MLA does not. If the assignment is Chicago, use the Chicago website guide. If it is APA, use the APA website guide. Do not mix the slots.

Common Mistakes on MLA Website Citations

Citing the homepage. Quote the page you used. Digital Dante is four entries when you used the site, Inferno 10, Paradiso 10, and Image. Blake Archive is two entries, not one.
Repeating the same name as author, site, and publisher. Education drops the duplicate names.
Writing Anonymous or n.d. Start with the title. Omit a missing date. Add Accessed only when it helps (Handbook 5.111).
Using an access date as the publication date. Accessed 23 Apr. 2025 is a supplemental element on Digital Dante Image, not the year the page was written.
Using the original date when a last-updated date is printed. The Handbook wants the date that is most relevant to the copy you used.
Keeping `https://` on an ordinary URL in a print or PDF paper. Official Style Center website examples drop the protocol.
Silently "fixing" an official URL. leftover-Deresiewicz-thecreative and leftover-Hollmichel-readingbrain are official compressions. Close wrap spaces. Do not restore dropped hyphens.
Copying leftover-Common-Core-ELA-Literacy-404 or leftover-Publishers-Weekly-trailing-slash-404 as if they were live pages. Quote the official string. Use the URL that resolved for your paper.
Inventing page numbers from your printout or browser. If the source has no part number, cite the name or title only (Handbook 6.26).
Treating a digitized book or a journal article as a generic webpage because you opened it in a browser. Poe and Goldman keep their original containers.
Copying leftover-Purdue-Accessed-is-no-longer-used. Purdue OWL still prints that leftover sentence on the same page as an Accessed 6 July 2025 example. Follow 5.111.
Pasting a `bit.ly` or a search-result URL. Use the page permalink.

Finish the citation in the MLA generator

Paste the page URL into the MLA citation generator and check the result against Deresiewicz, Burns, Barolini, “Education,” and “Pendragon.” The generator can miss a byline, repeat a publisher, keep tracking parameters, restore leftover-Deresiewicz-thecreative as the-creative, or flatten a HathiTrust book into a webpage. For a single worked pair, see How to Cite a Website in MLA or How to Cite a Blog Post in MLA. For the assigned style landing page, start at MLA.

Open the MLA generator MLA style overview

MLA website citation FAQs

How do you cite a website in MLA 9th edition?: Author. "Title of Web Page." Title of Website, Publisher if it differs, Day Mon. Year, URL. The Style Center's current article example is Deresiewicz. Close leftover-Deresiewicz-01-space after archive/2015/01/ and keep leftover-Deresiewicz-thecreative: Deresiewicz, William. “The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur.” The Atlantic, 28 Dec. 2014, theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-death-of-the-artist-and-the-birth-of-thecreative-entrepreneur/383497/.
Do I include https:// in an MLA website citation?: Usually no. Handbook 5.84, 5.96, and the Style Center URL advice say to omit the protocol and //. Official website examples start at theatlantic.com, www.nypl.org, digitaldante.columbia.edu, or style.mla.org. Keep https:// on a DOI (https://doi.org/...) and in live HTML if you need a clickable link.
What if the website has no author?: Start with the page title in quotation marks. Do not write Anonymous. The official examples are “Education.” New York Public Library, 2018, www.nypl.org/education. and “English Language Arts Standards.” Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2017, www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/. leftover-Common-Core-ELA-Literacy-404: that official path 404s; the live hub is corestandards.org/english-language-arts-standards/. In the text, cite a shortened title: ("Education").
Do I need an access date for a website in MLA?: Only when it helps. Handbook 5.111 says to add Accessed Day Mon. Year if the page has no publication or copyright date, or if you think the content may change or disappear. The current official ninth-edition model is “Image.” Digital Dante . . . Accessed 23 Apr. 2025. The leftover-eighth-edition model is the Orhan Pamuk page ending Accessed 25 Oct. 2015. Skip the access date on Deresiewicz, Burns, and other clearly dated pages. Do not copy leftover-Purdue-Accessed-is-no-longer-used.
Should I use the original date or the last-updated date?: Use the date that is most meaningful for the copy you quoted. The Handbook sentence the leftover-eighth-edition last-updated Q&A still quotes is “When a source carries more than one date, cite the date that is most meaningful or most relevant to your use of the source.” For a webpage that lists both dates, that is usually the last-updated or last-reviewed date.
Should I cite the homepage or the specific page?: Cite the specific page. Handbook 5.131, quoted on the 21 May 2025 Style Center note, says cross-references are not suitable for websites. Two Digital Dante essays become two entries, even when the author and editor are the same. leftover-citing-web-pages-8th-versus-5.131 is the older Blake Archive pair on the 2018 leftover-eighth-edition post.
When do I omit the publisher on a website?: When the publisher's name is basically the same as the website name. Burns keeps New York Public Library once. If a corporate page also shares that name, drop Author and Publisher and start with the title, as “Education.” does. Keep Modern Language Association of America on Style Center pages, and keep Columbia University Libraries on Digital Dante, because those publisher names are not the same as the site titles.
How do I cite a Wikipedia article in MLA?: Start with the article title in quotation marks, then Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, the article date, and the URL. Official Style Center strings include “Pendragon.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 15 Dec. 2016, Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendragon. and “Encyclopedia.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia. Cite each article separately.
How do I cite a blog post in MLA?: Treat the post as a webpage: blogger, post title in quotation marks, italic site, date, URL. Burns is the official institutional-blog model. Do not add the word Blog unless it is part of the site's title. If the post is a newspaper column on a news site, use the MLA newspaper guide instead.
How do I cite an entire website in MLA?: Only when you are discussing the site or project as a whole. Italicize the site title, add the publisher if it differs, then a date range or the most useful update date, then the URL. The current ninth-edition specimen is Barolini, Teodolinda. Digital Dante. Columbia University Libraries, 2014, digitaldante.columbia.edu/. Older official examples are Centre for Editing Lives and Letters. U College London, 2003-14, www.livesandletters.ac.uk/. and Piers Plowman Electronic Archive. Edited by Robert Adams et al., Society for Early English and Norse Electronic Texts, 8 Mar. 2018, piers.chass.ncsu.edu/.
How is an MLA website citation different from APA?: MLA puts the page title in quotation marks, italicizes the site, uses day-month-year, usually drops https://, and cites (Deresiewicz) with no year. APA italicizes a sentence-case page title, keeps the full URL, and cites (Deresiewicz, 2014). Use the APA website guide if that is the assigned style.