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How to Cite a Website with No Publisher

"No publisher" is usually the wrong diagnosis. APA 7 §10.16 never puts a book-style publisher on a webpage. MLA 9 and Chicago 18 §14.104 often want that slot empty. This is the missing-publisher page. It is not a second copy of how to cite a website in APA, MLA, or Chicago.

By 25 min read

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Photo: Thomas Martinsen, Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
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How to Cite a Website with No Publisher: Quick Answer

Omit the publisher when the style does not use one, when the name would only repeat the site or author, or when the platform only hosts someone else's work. Do not write n.p., Web, or Internet. If you cannot name a responsible organization after checking the footer and About page, leave the field blank and evaluate whether the source is usable. Copy official handbook dates when you are learning punctuation. When you cite the page you opened today, use the date that page prints — the live Google Privacy Policy now says Effective May 26, 2026, not the Quick Guide's 15 November 2023 sample.

Templates when the publisher slot is empty on purpose

APA 7, author same as the site:

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

APA 7, named author plus a different site:

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

MLA 9, publisher omitted because it repeats the site:

Last Name, First Name. "Title of Page." Title of Website, Day Month Year, URL.

MLA 9, corporate author same as site and publisher:

"Title of Page." Title of Website, Day Month Year, URL.

Chicago 18 note, owner already clear from the site:

1. "Title of Page," Title of Website, Month Day, Year, URL.

Chicago 18 bibliography, listed under the owner:

Owner or Sponsor. "Title of Page." Title of Website. Month Day, Year. URL.

Official wording you can quote

Because the author of the webpage and the site name are the same, omit the site name from the source element to avoid repetition.
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.
A publisher's name may be omitted when, by convention, the publisher need not be given or there is no publisher
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. If a source does not list a date of publication or revision, include an access date. Alternatively, if 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.
In the notes, the title will usually come first (as in the examples above); in a bibliography entry, the source should be listed under the owner or sponsor of the site.

The first sentence is APA Style's webpage rule, still reprinted on 16 September 2026 by Alamo Colleges and Rutgers. The next two are the MLA Style Center (published 17 September 2018; the page still carries an eighth-edition banner) and MLA Handbook, 9th edition, p. 165 — the ninth edition keeps the same omit-publisher test. The last two are the live Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide webpage note for CMOS 18 §14.104, opened on 16 September 2026.

This page is not the website-in-APA, MLA, or Chicago tutorial

Three sibling guides already teach the full webpage pattern in one style. Use those when you need hanging indents, news-versus-newspaper splits, blog-versus-webpage tests, or container punctuation. Stay here when the only question is whether a publisher, site name, or owner line should exist at all.

  • How to cite a website in APA covers Toner–Bologna–Roberts news sites, retrieval dates, and copyright-footer dates.
  • How to cite websites in MLA covers Deresiewicz, last-updated dates, Wikipedia Pendragon, and nested containers.
  • How to cite websites in Chicago covers CMOS 14.103–14.105, italic news sites, and the live Google 26 May 2026 pairing in Notes-Bibliography and Author-Date.
  • This page answers one query: how to cite a website with no publisher. The three styles share that omission rule and almost nothing else.

Why "no publisher" is usually a different problem

Book citations train you to hunt for a city and a press. Webpage citations do not work that way. In APA 7, a webpage reference is author, date, italic page title, website name, and URL (Publication Manual §10.16). The website name is a source element, not a book publisher. In MLA 9, Publisher is one of nine core elements, and you skip it whenever it would only repeat the site title or name a host that did not produce the work. In Chicago 18, CMOS 14.104 asks for the owner or sponsor if it differs from the site title, then a URL. CMOS 8.193 keeps generic site names such as Google, Yale University, and Wikimedia Foundation in roman type; those names are owners, not italic book titles.

The search query "how to cite a website with no publisher" usually names one of three situations:

  • The author and the site are the same organization. APA omits the site name. MLA omits the publisher, and sometimes the author. Chicago lists the owner once.
  • A platform is hosting someone else's writing. YouTube, WordPress, JSTOR, and similar sites are containers or locations, not publishers.
  • You genuinely cannot name a responsible organization. Omit the element. Do not invent one, and do not write n.p..

Older MLA 7 templates printed n.p. for "no publisher" and n.d. for "no date." MLA 8 and 9 dropped those placeholders. APA 7 never used n.p. for webpages. If a generator still emits n.p., n.pub., "Web," or "Internet" as a publisher, the template is stale.

Author, website name, and publisher do different jobs

Mixing these three labels is how students either duplicate a name or leave a hole the style did not ask them to fill. The MLA Handbook, 9th edition, p. 164, defines the publisher this way:

The publisher is the entity primarily responsible for producing the work or making it available to the public.

Author

  • The person or group responsible for the words on this page
  • May be a named writer, a byline, or an organization
  • If the page is unsigned, look for an agency, company, or institution before you decide there is no author

Website name (APA) or container (MLA)

  • The larger site that holds the page: CNN, New York Public Library, Medium
  • APA calls this the site name and places it after the italic title
  • MLA italicizes it as the container title

Publisher or sponsor

  • The organization that produces or issues the work, not the company that only hosts the files
  • MLA uses this core element for books, films, and some sites; it often drops it for webpages
  • Chicago 18 names the owner or sponsor when that name is not already the site title

When the three names collapse into one, every current style would rather you list the organization once than repeat it.

Where to look before you omit the publisher

Omit the element only after you have looked. Website design is not standardized, so a responsible name can sit in more than one place. Check these locations in order:

  1. The page footer. Copyright lines often name the legal owner: "© 2026 American Psychological Association."
  2. About, About Us, or Who We Are. Parent institutes, museums, and nonprofits usually identify themselves there.
  3. A byline or "reviewed by" line. That is author information, not publisher information, but it stops you from treating an unsigned page as authorless.
  4. The site header or logo. The visible site name is what APA and MLA want when the author is a different person.
  5. A parent agency on a government page. APA keeps a parent department in the source element when it differs from the authoring agency.

Do not treat a WHOIS record as the publisher. Domain registration is often hidden behind a privacy service, and the registrant is not the organization that issued the page. The domain itself can still be a clue: cdc.gov is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; nypl.org is the New York Public Library. That is reading the site, not citing a registrar.

What not to list as a publisher

  • Web hosts such as GoDaddy, Amazon Web Services, or GitHub Pages
  • Content-management systems such as WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or Drupal
  • Browsers and search engines such as Chrome, Safari, Google Search, or Bing
  • Placeholder words such as Web, Internet, n.p., or n.pub.
  • Privacy-protected domain registrants from a WHOIS lookup

MLA 9 p. 165 tells you to omit the publisher for periodicals, self-published works, websites whose titles are essentially the same as the publisher, and websites that do not produce the works they make available. The handbook's own examples of that last group are YouTube, WordPress, JSTOR, and ProQuest. Those names may still appear as a container. The Buena Vista University MLA 9 publisher page reprints the same four omission cases.

How to cite a website with no publisher in APA 7

Start from the APA Style webpage examples. APA's own instruction is the whole rule for this query: omit the site name when the author and the site are the same. If they differ, keep the site name and still do not add a separate publisher line. Ignore a "last reviewed" stamp. APA Style's reprints say a review date does not mean the content changed.

Organization that is both author and site

This is the most common "no publisher" case in APA, and it is not missing a field. APA Style's World Health Organization sample uses a group author, a specific date, an italic title, and a URL, with no repeated site name. The live fact sheet prints 7 August 2024 and reports 2021 Global Health Estimates. Copy the official 24 May 2018 sample when you are learning the pattern. When you cite the live sheet, use 7 August 2024.

APA Style official WHO sample versus the live sheet

Official handbook reference:

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

Live page, if that is the copy you opened:

World Health Organization. (2024, August 7). The top 10 causes of death. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death

Parenthetical citation (official sample):

(World Health Organization, 2018)

Narrative citation (official sample):

World Health Organization (2018)

Individual author, site name kept

When a named journalist writes on a news website, APA keeps the site name. That name is not optional padding, and it is not a publisher statement. This is APA Style's own CNN example — K. Toner's story about a newspaper route, not a restaurant. CNN stays because Toner is not CNN. Some LibGuides swap in Woodyatt or change Toner's date to December; those are not the official string.

APA Style official Toner sample

Reference list:

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

Parenthetical citation:

(Toner, 2020)

Narrative citation:

Toner (2020)

Agency author with a different parent in the source element

APA does use a publisher-like source element on some government pages: the parent department, when it is not the same as the authoring institute. That is the opposite of a missing publisher. APA Style's National Institute of Mental Health example keeps the parent agencies after the title. On 16 September 2026 the official /index.shtml path still resolved; NIMH now redirects it to the same topic page without the filename. Keep the handbook URL.

APA Style official NIMH sample

Reference list:

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)

Platform-hosted page: site name, still no publisher

APA Style's individual-author webpage sample is F. Giovanetti on Medium. Medium is the site name. There is still no separate publisher line.

APA Style official Giovanetti sample

Reference list:

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)

No author and no usable site name

If you cannot name a person or a group, move the italic title to the author position. Keep a site name when one exists. In the text, shorten the title and italicize it, because that is how it appears in the reference list. For unsigned pages that also have no date, see how to cite a source with no author and how to cite a source with no date.

Reference list template:

Title of webpage. (n.d.). URL

Parenthetical citation template:

(Shortened Title, n.d.)

APA 7 dropped "Retrieved from" before ordinary URLs. Add a retrieval date only when the page is designed to change and is not archived. A missing publisher is not a reason to add one. For the rest of webpage formatting, use the website in APA guide or the worked how to cite a website in APA page.

How to cite a website with no publisher in MLA 9

MLA 9 still has a Publisher slot. You fill it only when it adds information the container title does not already give. The MLA Style Center example for a library blog keeps New York Public Library as the container and skips a second publisher line because the names match. That Q&A still shows an eighth-edition banner and cites the 2016 handbook. The ninth edition (2021) keeps the same test: omit a publisher that is basically the site name.

Publisher omitted because it repeats the site name

MLA Style Center official Burns sample

Works cited:

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.

In-text citation:

(Burns)

Corporate author omitted with the publisher

The same MLA Style Center note is stricter when a public institution is author, publisher, and site. Then both the author element and the publisher element come out, and the entry begins with the page title:

MLA Style Center official Education sample

Works cited:

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

In-text citation:

("Education")

Periodical sites: the same omit-publisher rule

MLA also omits the publisher for journals, magazines, and newspapers. That is why the Style Center's William Deresiewicz Atlantic sample on the MLA website guide has no second publisher line. Do not invent "Atlantic Media" to fill the slot. Stay on this page for the omission test; use that sibling for URL punctuation and last-updated dates.

Hosts that publish nothing

YouTube, WordPress, JSTOR, and ProQuest "do not produce the works they contain" (MLA Handbook, 9th ed., p. 165). Treat the platform as a container when it is the site you used, and leave Publisher blank. A personal WordPress.com essay is self-published; the author is not WordPress.

Works-cited template:

Last Name, First Name. "Title of Page." Title of Website, Day Month Year, URL.

Self-published personal sites

MLA also omits the publisher for works published by their author or editor. A scholar's own site, a photographer's portfolio, or an independent blog usually has no separate press. Give the author, the page or site title, a date if you have one, and the URL. Do not put the hosting company in that slot.

Works-cited template:

Last Name, First Name. Title of Website. Year, URL.

MLA access dates are optional. Include one when the page is undated, likely to change, or required by your instructor. Do not add "Accessed" just to fill space, and do not add one because a publisher is missing. For container punctuation and more webpage patterns, see how to cite websites in MLA and how to cite a website in MLA.

How to cite a website with no publisher in Chicago 18

The Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide is blunt: a running-text mention is often enough. When you do need a formal note, CMOS 14.104 wants the page title or description, the title or description of the site as a whole, the owner or sponsor if that name is not already obvious, and a URL. If no publication or revision date can be found, include an access date. Alternatively, cite a Wayback Machine snapshot of the version you used.

Owner named once, no extra publisher

Chicago's own Google example is the model for a corporate site whose owner and site title are already clear. The note leads with the page title; the bibliography lists the source under the owner. There is no second publisher statement. Copy the official pairing: the note omits the year after "November 15," and the bibliography restores 2023 with "Effective."

CMOS 18 Quick Guide Google sample

Note:

1. "Privacy Policy," Privacy & Terms, Google, effective November 15, https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Shortened note:

4. Google, "Privacy Policy."

Bibliography:

Google. "Privacy Policy." Privacy & Terms. Effective November 15, 2023. https://policies.google.com/privacy.

The official Quick Guide, still live on 16 September 2026, demonstrates the webpage pattern with Google's privacy policy as it stood on 15 November 2023. The live Google Privacy Policy now prints Effective May 26, 2026. Learn the punctuation from the 2023 sample. When you cite the page you read today, use 2026. Do not invent a third date, and do not keep 2023 because an older handout did.

Official sample versus the live Google page

Official note (Quick Guide):

1. "Privacy Policy," Privacy & Terms, Google, effective November 15, https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Live note, if you opened today's policy:

1. "Privacy Policy," Privacy & Terms, Google, effective May 26, 2026, https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Live bibliography:

Google. "Privacy Policy." Privacy & Terms. Effective May 26, 2026. https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Owner that is not the page title

The Quick Guide's Wikipedia sample is the case where you do name a sponsor. The page title is "Wikipedia: Manual of Style." The owner is the Wikimedia Foundation. That second name is new information, so Chicago keeps it. It is still not a book publisher, and you still do not invent a press.

CMOS 18 Quick Guide Wikimedia sample

Note:

2. "Wikipedia: Manual of Style," Wikimedia Foundation, last modified December 19, 2023, 21:54 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style.

Shortened note:

5. "Wikipedia: Manual of Style."

Bibliography:

Wikimedia Foundation. "Wikipedia: Manual of Style." Last modified December 19, 2023, at 21:54 (UTC). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style.

No date, so an access date instead of a publisher hunt

Chicago's Yale Facts example is the other half of the rule. The university is the owner. There is no usable publication date, so the access date does the dating work. Adding a fictitious press name would not make the citation stronger. The live About Yale: Yale Facts page still prints no publication or revision date. It now says the fact sheet represents 2025 data, including fiscal year, academic year, and graduating-class figures. That sentence is not a CMOS date. CMOS 18 also allows the archived snapshot instead of an access date. Pick one; do not stack both.

CMOS 18 Quick Guide Yale Facts sample

Note, access date:

3. "About Yale: Yale Facts," Yale University, accessed March 8, 2022, https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/yale-facts.

Note, archived snapshot:

3. "About Yale: Yale Facts," Yale University, archived March 8, 2022, at https://web.archive.org/web/20220308143337/https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/yale-facts.

Shortened note:

6. "Yale Facts."

Bibliography, access date:

Yale University. "About Yale: Yale Facts." Accessed March 8, 2022. https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/yale-facts.

Author-date, when a Chicago course uses parentheses

The live Author-Date Quick Guide still prints (Wikimedia Foundation 2022) next to a 2023 reference-list year. That pair is internally inconsistent. Do not copy the 2022 parenthetical. Use 2023 with the official sample, or use the last-modified year on the revision you actually opened.

CMOS 18 Author-Date Quick Guide pairing

In-text citation:

(Google 2023)

Reference list:

Google. 2023. "Privacy Policy." Privacy & Terms. Effective November 15. https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Live page, if you opened today's policy:

Google. 2026. "Privacy Policy." Privacy & Terms. Effective May 26. https://policies.google.com/privacy.

In-text, live page:

(Google 2026)

In-text, no date:

(Yale University n.d.)

Reference list, no date:

Yale University. n.d. "About Yale: Yale Facts." Accessed March 8, 2022. https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/yale-facts.

In notes, the title usually comes first when no individual author is named. In the bibliography, CMOS says the source should be listed under the owner or sponsor of the site. That owner slot is as close as Chicago gets to a webpage publisher, and you still omit a second line when the site title already is that name. For blog posts and news sites, use how to cite websites in Chicago or how to cite a website in Chicago.

Quick comparison: missing publisher by style

What each current manual does when a website has no separate publisher
QuestionAPA 7MLA 9Chicago 18
Name of the fieldSite name, not publisherPublisher core elementOwner or sponsor
Author = site or ownerOmit the site name (WHO)Omit publisher; maybe omit author (NYPL Education)List the owner once (Google)
Host that does not publishUse the site name; no extra publisher (Medium)Omit publisher (YouTube, WordPress, JSTOR)Name the site; skip a redundant sponsor
Owner differs from the page titleKeep the site or parent agency (NIMH)Keep the container; skip a repeated publisherName the sponsor (Wikimedia Foundation)
Genuinely unknownOmit the site name; keep author, title, URLOmit publisher; never write n.p.Omit owner; add an access date if undated
Official sample versus live pageWHO 24 May 2018 versus 7 August 2024Burns 2 Mar. 2016 still the live Q&AGoogle 15 Nov. 2023 versus 26 May 2026
Stale placeholderNo n.p.; no Retrieved fromNo n.p.; no WebNo n.p.; describe the page in the text if that is enough

Special cases

Self-published blogs and personal sites

A personal blog is published by its author. APA keeps the author and the italic title and adds a site name only when it differs from that author. MLA omits Publisher because the work is published by its author. Chicago can treat the author as the owner. None of the three styles wants WordPress, Substack, or a hosting company in that slot.

Platform-hosted essays

On Medium, Substack, or a university blog network, the platform is usually the site name or container. Giovanetti keeps Medium after the title and still does not add a publisher. In MLA, Medium is the container and Publisher is omitted. If you are citing a standalone newsletter rather than a page on a larger magazine site, the blog-post citation generator is the closer tool.

Government and organization sites

Government pages almost always have an author: the agency. They almost never need a second publisher name in APA unless a parent department differs from that agency, as in the NIMH sample. MLA starts many unsigned agency pages with the title and uses the agency site as the container. Chicago lists the agency as owner. If the page is a report, statute, or data release rather than a topical webpage, cite the document type, not "a website."

Archived or vanished pages

Chicago 18 prefers a stable archived URL when you used the Wayback Machine or a similar public archive. Cite the snapshot you actually read, not only the live address that later went dark. APA and MLA can also end with that archived URL. The archive is a location, not a publisher, unless you are writing about the archive as a collection.

Wikis and collaboratively edited pages

Wikipedia and similar projects have a site name and no individual author. That is an author problem first. APA and MLA both start with the article title; neither one needs a separate publisher besides the wiki. Chicago's Manual of Style sample lists Wikimedia Foundation as owner. See Wikipedia for research before you decide the page is citable at all.

Common mistakes

  • Writing `n.p.` or `Web`. Those markers belong to retired templates, not APA 7, MLA 9, or CMOS 18.
  • Repeating the organization. If who.int writes the page, the APA reference does not also need World Health Organization after the title.
  • Calling the host the publisher. WordPress hosted the files; it did not issue the work.
  • Using a copyright year as an APA date. APA wants a publication or last-updated date, not the footer copyright range. If there is no real date, use (n.d.).
  • Using a last-reviewed stamp as an APA date. A review does not mean the content changed.
  • Copying the official Google 2023 date onto the live 2026 policy. Learn the punctuation from the Quick Guide. Cite the effective date printed on the page you opened.
  • Copying the Author-Date Quick Guide's `(Wikimedia Foundation 2022)` parenthetical. The matching reference-list year is 2023.
  • Treating "represents 2025 data" as a publication date. Yale Facts still has no CMOS date.
  • Updating the official WHO 2018 string to 7 August 2024 when you are copying the handbook example. Cite the copy you read.
  • Skipping the hunt. A missing publisher is a conclusion, not a first impression. Check the footer and About page first.
  • Confusing no publisher with no author. They are separate problems with separate fixes. See sources with no author.
  • Padding the citation with WHOIS data. A privacy-protected registrant is not a source element.
  • Inventing a CNN story to match a date. Use the official Toner newspaper-route sample, or cite the page you actually opened.

A short checklist before you cite

Work through these in order:

  1. Name the author or responsible organization.
  2. Copy the page title exactly, then apply the style's capitalization.
  3. Name the website if it is not already the author.
  4. Add a publisher or sponsor only when the style uses that element and the name is new information.
  5. Use the most specific date on the page you opened, or the style's no-date form. Do not copy a handbook year onto a revised live page.
  6. End with the page URL, or with an archived snapshot if that is what you used.
  7. If the page cannot be attributed or evaluated, replace it. Publisher problems often travel with credibility problems.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you cite a website with no publisher in APA?
In APA 7th edition you usually do not cite a publisher for a webpage. Use the author, date, italic title, and URL. Include the website name only when it differs from the author. APA Style's rule is to "omit the site name from the source element to avoid repetition" when author and site are the same, as in the official World Health Organization sample dated 24 May 2018. The live WHO fact sheet now prints 7 August 2024; use that date if you opened today's page. Do not write n.p.
How do you cite a website with no publisher in MLA?
Give the author (if there is one), the page title in quotation marks, the italic website name, the date, and the URL. Leave the publisher element out when it repeats the site name, when the author published the work, or when the site only hosts content (YouTube, WordPress, JSTOR, ProQuest). The official New York Public Library Burns and Education entries both skip a second publisher line. The Style Center Q&A still shows an eighth-edition banner; MLA 9 keeps the same test and does not use n.p.
Do I write n.p. if there is no publisher?
No. n.p. is a leftover from MLA 7 and some older note styles. APA 7, MLA 9, and Chicago 18 all omit an unknown publisher instead of printing a placeholder. If your generated citation still contains n.p., Web, or Internet, replace the template.
Is the website name the same thing as the publisher?
Not always. CNN is a site name in the official APA Toner reference. The New York Public Library can be both container and publisher in MLA, so you list it once. Chicago asks for the owner or sponsor when that name is not already the site title, which is why the Quick Guide names Wikimedia Foundation next to "Wikipedia: Manual of Style."
What if the author and the publisher are the same organization?
List the organization once. APA keeps it as the group author and omits the site name (WHO). MLA often starts with the page title and keeps the organization as the italic website name (NYPL Education). Chicago lists the owner in the bibliography and does not add a second publisher line (Google).
How do I cite Google's privacy policy if the official Chicago sample still says 2023?
The live CMOS 18 Quick Guide still uses effective November 15, 2023, and omits the year in the note. The live policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy now prints Effective May 26, 2026. If you opened today's page, cite 2026. Use the 2023 sample only when you are copying the Quick Guide's punctuation.
How do I cite a personal blog that has no publisher?
Cite the blogger as the author and omit a separate publisher. APA: Author. (Date). Title of post. Site Name. URL, dropping the site name if it is only the author's name. MLA: Author. "Title of Page." Title of Website, date, URL. Chicago: a note with author, quoted title, site, date or access date, and URL. Do not list WordPress or Substack as the publisher.
Should I use a WHOIS lookup to find the publisher?
No. WHOIS tells you who registered the domain, often through a privacy proxy, and that person or vendor is not the publisher of the page. Use the footer, About page, and the visible organization name. If those are empty, omit the publisher element.
Do I need an access date when the publisher is missing?
Only when your style wants one for other reasons. APA uses a retrieval date for unarchived pages that are designed to change, not because a publisher is missing. MLA access dates are optional unless the page is undated or your instructor requires them. Chicago 18 wants an access date when no publication or revision date can be found (CMOS 14.104), as in the official Yale Facts sample dated March 8, 2022. "Represents 2025 data" on the live Yale page is not that date.
How do I cite a page I only saw on the Wayback Machine?
Cite the snapshot URL you used. Chicago 18 expressly allows a publicly archived version in place of the live link; the official Yale Facts archive note uses https://web.archive.org/web/20220308143337/https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/yale-facts. APA and MLA can likewise end with the archived URL. Do not list Internet Archive as the publisher unless the archive itself is the subject.
What if the website has no author and no publisher?
Start with the title, then add whatever date and site name you can defend. APA italicizes the title in the author position. MLA puts the page title first in quotation marks. Chicago can describe the page in the sentence or list it under the site owner. If you cannot identify who is responsible for the words, consider whether the source is usable; see how to cite a source with no author and how to evaluate sources.

Build the webpage citation, then delete the extra publisher

Paste the URL into the website generator and choose APA 7, MLA 9, or Chicago 18. If the tool repeats an organization name or inserts n.p., delete that field. The manuals would rather you omit it.

Website citation generator →Open the main citation generator →