The pattern at a glance
- Webpage with a person as authorAuthor, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. https://www.example.com/page
- Organization pageOrganization Name. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. https://www.example.org/pageLeave the site name out when it repeats the author, so you do not write the organization twice.
- No dateAuthor or Title. (n.d.). Title of page. Site Name. Retrieved Month Day, Year, from https://www.example.com
Is it really a webpage?
APA uses the webpage format as a last resort. If the page is an online newspaper article, a journal article, a report or a book that happens to be online, cite it with that type instead, because those references carry more useful detail. The webpage format fits fact sheets, explainers, data pages, organizational pages and blog-style articles on research centres' websites.
Cite the specific page you used, not the homepage of the site. If you only mention a website in passing ("the WHO website lists fact sheets on many topics"), APA lets you give the URL in parentheses in the text without a reference entry.
Author, date and title on real webpages
Look for a byline first. Research organizations such as Pew Research Center sign their articles, so the person becomes the author and the organization becomes the site name. Fact sheets from WHO, CDC or a university office usually carry no personal name; the organization is the group author.
For the date, use the publication or last-update date shown on the page itself. Our World in Data prints a "Cite this work" box with the year it recommends (2018 for the literacy page, although the text says it first appeared in 2013), which is the clearest signal available.
The page title is italic and in sentence case. Do not include the site name that browsers append to the tab title, such as "| Pew Research Center".
Field by field: the webpage form
The generator's webpage form contains these fields. The third column says where to check each value on the live page.
| Field | What to enter | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Person (Surname, Given names) or organization as a single name. | Byline, "About the author", or the organization's name in the header. |
| Title | Title of this page, sentence case. | Main heading on the page. |
| Website name | Name of the whole site. | Logo or footer. Skip it when it matches the author. |
| Date | Year, month and day if shown; year only when that is all the page gives. | Under the title or at the bottom of the article. |
| Accessed | Only for pages without a date or designed to change. | Your own note of when you read it. |
| URL | Exact page address. | Browser address bar. |
APA website citation examples
Four public webpages read on 25 October 2026, formatted by the engine that runs the generator.
Organization as author (WHO fact sheet)
APA 7th: Reference entry
World Health Organization. (2024, June 26). Physical activity. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity
In-text citation: (World Health Organization, 2024)
The author and the website are both the World Health Organization. APA's own advice is to omit the site name when it repeats the author; the engine prints it, so delete the second "World Health Organization" after copying if you follow that rule strictly.
Checked against the page itself (checked on 25 October 2026). WHO fact sheet; JSON-LD datePublished 26 June 2024, author World Health Organization.
Named author on an organization's site (Pew Research Center)
APA 7th: Reference entry
Lipka, M. (2026, October 23). Growing share of Americans say social media is an important news source for them. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/10/23/growing-share-of-americans-say-social-media-is-an-important-news-source-for-them/
In-text citation: (Lipka, 2026)
The byline names Michael Lipka, so he is the author and Pew Research Center is the site name. Pew's RSS feed credits a different person for some posts; the byline on the page is what counts.
Checked against the page itself (checked on 25 October 2026). Byline Michael Lipka, published 23 October 2026 (page metadata). The site's RSS feed credits a different staff member, so the byline on the page wins.
Two authors, year only (Our World in Data)
APA 7th: Reference entry
Roser, M., & Ortiz-Ospina, E. (2018). Literacy. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/literacy
In-text citation: (Roser & Ortiz-Ospina, 2018)
The page offers a ready citation with the year 2018, so the reference uses the year alone. Two authors are joined with an ampersand.
Checked against the page itself (checked on 25 October 2026). The page's own "Cite this work" box gives Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2018); it also says the article was first published in 2013 with minor changes in March 2024.
No author and no date (MDN Web Docs)
APA 7th: Reference entry
Overview of HTTP. (n.d.). MDN Web Docs. Retrieved October 25, 2026, from https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Guides/Overview
In-text citation: (Overview of HTTP, n.d.)
Without an author, the page title moves to the front; without a date, APA writes (n.d.) and adds the retrieval date because documentation pages change.
Checked against the page itself (checked on 25 October 2026). No personal author and no publication date on the page, so the access date (25 October 2026) is recorded.
Formatted by the same citation engine that runs the generator above (citeproc-js with the official CSL style file). Italics follow the style.
In-text citations for webpages
Use the first element of the reference (author or title) and the year.
- Organization: (World Health Organization, 2024)
- Person: Lipka (2026) found that the share of adults who rely on social media for news has grown.
- No author: Put the title in italics: (Overview of HTTP, n.d.).
- No date: (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.)
- Quotation without pages: Count paragraphs or name the section: (Roser & Ortiz-Ospina, 2018, Global Literacy Today section).
Mistakes to avoid when citing websites in APA
- Using the copyright year in the footer as the page date. "© 2026" refers to the whole site. If the page itself has no date, write (n.d.).
- Writing "Retrieved from" for every page. APA 7 uses a retrieval date only for undated or changing pages.
- Citing the homepage. Give the address of the exact page you read.
- Trusting metadata over the visible byline. Hidden author tags can hold an editor's login name. Check the name printed on the page.
APA website citation FAQ
How do I cite a website in APA 7 with no author?
Move the page title to the author position: Title of page. (Year). Site Name. URL. In the text use the italic title and the year.
How do I cite a website with no date in APA?
Write (n.d.) after the author and add Retrieved Month Day, Year, from before the URL.
Do I italicise the website name in APA?
No. On a webpage reference the page title is italic and the site name is plain text.
Should I cite the whole website or a page?
Cite the page you used. Mentioning a website in general only needs the URL in your sentence, with no reference entry.
Style guides used on this page
Rules on this page were checked against these pages on 25 October 2026.