Website Citation Generator
Paste the address of a web page and the generator reads its title, author, site name and date from the page. You get the reference and the in-text citation in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 and 10,834 other styles, and you can fix any field before you copy it. Free, no sign-up.
How to Use the Website Citation Generator
- 1. Paste the URL. Paste the full address of the page. Paste one link per line to cite a list at once.
- 2. Choose a style. Pick APA, MLA, Chicago or any of the 10,834 styles.
- 3. Read the result. The page's own metadata gives the title, the author, the site name and the date. Pages with missing metadata return an incomplete entry, so check each part against the page.
- 4. Fix what is missing. Choose Edit to add an author or a date and regenerate. If the site blocks the fetch, choose Enter the details manually.
- 5. Copy the reference and the in-text citation.
What a Web Page Citation Needs
Whatever the style, a web page is cited by five things: who made it, when, what it is called, which site it sits on and where to find it. The styles differ in how they handle the gaps.
| If the page has… | APA 7 | MLA 9 | Chicago 18 |
|---|---|---|---|
| An author | Author first | Author first | Author first |
| No author | Title moves to the front | Title moves to the front | Site or organization as author |
| No date | (n.d.), plus a retrieval date if the page changes | Leave the date out; add an access date | Access date |
| The site as author | Omit the repeated site name | Omit the author, start with the title | Name the site once |
APA 7 (§10.16) italicizes a web page's title, then names the site and gives the URL. It asks for a retrieval date only when a page is designed to change over time and has no archived version. When the author and the site name are the same, the site name is not repeated. MLA 9 puts the page's title in quotation marks and the website in italics, and an access date is optional. Chicago 18 cites most web pages in a note, adds an access date only when no date is shown, and uses the site or organization as author when no person is named.
Website Citation Examples
A fact sheet whose author is the same organization as its site: the World Health Organization's Climate change page, published October 12, 2023.
Group author, dated page
APA 7:
World Health Organization. (2023, October 12). Climate change. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health
APA in-text:
(World Health Organization, 2023)
MLA 9:
“Climate Change.” World Health Organization, 12 Oct. 2023, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health.
MLA in-text:
(“Climate Change”)
Chicago 18 note:
World Health Organization, “Climate Change,” October 12, 2023, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health.
Chicago 18 bibliography:
World Health Organization. “Climate Change.” October 12, 2023. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health.
A page with no author and no date, as Worldometer's population counter. APA adds n.d. and a retrieval date because the figures change.
No author, no date
APA 7:
Current world population. (n.d.). Worldometer. Retrieved October 17, 2026, from https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
MLA 9:
“Current World Population.” Worldometer, www.worldometers.info/world-population/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.
Chicago 18 note:
“Current World Population,” Worldometer, accessed October 17, 2026, https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/.
What the Generator Gives You
For the WHO page, the generator returns the APA entry with World Health Organization twice, once as author and once as site, because it reads the site name from the page. Delete the second. It capitalizes the page title in MLA and Chicago, leaves it in sentence case in APA, and adds today's date as an access date only where the style prints one. The copy is plain text, so italicize the title in APA and the site in MLA yourself. News articles come back as web pages, so use the newspaper or magazine tool for those.
Which Tool Do You Need?
- A page on a website — this page.
- A blog post — the Blog Post Citation Generator.
- A Wikipedia article — the Wikipedia Citation Generator, which handles the revision date.
- A post on X, Instagram or Facebook — the Social Media Citation Generator.
- A newspaper article — the Newspaper Citation Generator.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I cite a website in APA 7?
- Give the author, the date, the page title in italics, the site name and the URL: World Health Organization. (2023, October 12). Climate change. URL. If the author and the site are the same, name them once. In text: (World Health Organization, 2023).
- How do I cite a website in MLA 9?
- Name the author if there is one, give the page's title in quotation marks, the website in italics, the date and the URL without https://. When the author and the website are the same organization, leave out the author: “Climate Change.” World Health Organization, 12 Oct. 2023, URL.
- How do I cite a website in Chicago style?
- Use a note: World Health Organization, “Climate Change,” October 12, 2023, URL. The bibliography entry puts the author first. If the page shows no date, add accessed and the date you viewed it.
- How do I cite a website with no author?
- Use the page title in the author position in APA and at the start of the entry in MLA. In Chicago, name the organization or site that publishes the page. Search the page for a group author in its header, footer or About page before you give up.
- Do I need a retrieval or access date?
- APA asks for one only when the page is meant to change and is not archived, such as a live counter. MLA treats it as optional. Chicago wants one only when the page has no publication date. When in doubt, add it; it never hurts.
- What if the page has no title?
- Describe the page in square brackets in APA, and in plain type in MLA. For a PDF served from a website, cite the document it contains with the PDF Citation Generator.
- Which citation styles does the website generator support?
- All 10,834 styles in the library, including APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago 18.
Related Tools
How to cite a Website in each style
Format rules, templates, and worked examples for the styles most often required.