APA Website Citation Generator

Use the APA Website Citation Generator to create an APA 7 reference and matching in-text citation for a webpage. Enter the source details manually, or use public-URL lookup when that feature is available, then review the author, date, page title, website name, and URL before adding the citation to your reference project.

A URL alone does not tell you what kind of source you have. Before using the webpage form, confirm that the work itself is actually a webpage rather than a journal article, report, book, dissertation, or another source that happens to be available online.

How to Cite a Website in APA 7

For a typical webpage with an individual author, the reference follows this pattern:

**Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). *Title of webpage*. Website Name. URL**

The matching in-text citation normally uses the author and year:

Parenthetical: (Author, Year) Narrative: Author (Year)

The exact reference can change when the author is an organization, the author and website name are the same, no date is available, or the content is designed to change over time.

APA Citation Builder keeps those source details editable so you can check them before using the formatted result.

Create a Website Citation Step by Step

1. Confirm that your source is a webpage

Use this workflow for a specific page published on a website.

Examples include:

• an informational page on an organization website
• a government agency webpage
• a university webpage
• an online article published directly by a website
• a company or nonprofit resource page
• a blog post when the webpage format is appropriate

Do not choose “webpage” simply because your browser displays the source.

If the work is a scholarly journal article, use the APA journal article citation generator. If it is a report issued by an organization or government body, use the report workflow when that page is available.

2. Enter or look up the webpage

You can enter the webpage details manually.

When public-webpage lookup is enabled, you may also be able to start with a public URL and let APA Citation Builder attempt to retrieve available page metadata.

Automatic lookup is only a starting point. Website metadata can be missing, outdated, ambiguous, or unrelated to the specific page you are citing.

Do not submit private, password-protected, signed, or tokenized URLs.

3. Review the author

Look for the person or organization responsible for the specific webpage.

Possible authors include:

• a named individual
• several named individuals
• a government agency
• a university
• a nonprofit organization
• a company or other group

Do not automatically use the website name as the author.

If no individual author is listed, check whether the page can reasonably be attributed to the organization responsible for the content. If an organization is both the author and the website name, APA Style omits the repeated website-name element from the reference.

If no author can be identified at all, the reference is handled differently. See APA citations with no author or no date for the missing-information cases.

4. Check the publication date

Use the date that belongs to the specific webpage.

A webpage may show several dates, including:

• an original publication date
• a clearly identified updated date
• a “last reviewed” date
• a site-wide copyright year

These are not automatically interchangeable.

For webpage references, use a publication date or a clearly applicable update date when available. A site-wide footer copyright year usually does not tell you when the specific page was published. A “last reviewed” date also does not necessarily mean that the page content changed.

If the page provides no usable date, use the appropriate no-date treatment rather than inventing one.

5. Enter the page title

Use the title of the specific page you are citing, not merely the name of the overall website.

For a standard webpage reference, the webpage title is treated as the title of the work. Check it carefully for:

• spelling
• subtitle wording
• proper nouns
• acronyms
• scientific names
• meaningful capitalization

Automated metadata can sometimes return a browser-tab title, SEO title, or site-wide text instead of the clean page title.

6. Check the website name

The website name identifies the larger site that contains the page.

For example, a webpage could have:

• an individual author
• a specific page title
• a website name
• a direct URL

If the author and website name are the same organization, do not repeat the organization as the website name.

7. Use the direct public URL

Use the URL for the specific page you cited.

Avoid substituting the website homepage when a stable direct page URL exists.

Also review the URL for obvious tracking parameters or private access information before using it in a citation or submitting it for lookup.

APA Website Citation Examples

The examples below are original examples created to demonstrate common webpage patterns.

Webpage with an individual author

Reference

Morgan, T. R. (2025, February 12). *How urban trees reduce summer heat*. City Ecology Review. https://www.cityecologyreview.example/urban-trees-summer-heat

Parenthetical citation

(Morgan, 2025)

Narrative citation

Morgan (2025)

Organization as author

Reference

National River Research Center. (2024, October 8). *Monitoring freshwater quality after major storms*. https://www.nrrc.example/freshwater/storm-monitoring

Parenthetical citation

(National River Research Center, 2024)

In this example, the organization is both the author and the name of the website, so the website name is not repeated.

Webpage with no date

Reference

Open Learning Laboratory. (n.d.). *Guide to evaluating online sources*. https://www.openlearninglab.example/evaluating-online-sources

Parenthetical citation

(Open Learning Laboratory, n.d.)

Do not use n.d. merely because an automatic lookup failed to find the date. First check the webpage itself for a valid publication or update date.

When Do You Need a Retrieval Date?

Most ordinary webpages do not need a retrieval date simply because they are online.

A retrieval date is used when the content is designed to change over time and earlier versions are not reliably archived.

Examples can include certain live data pages, continuously updated resources, or other content whose current state is part of what you are citing.

A retrieval-date reference follows a pattern such as:

**Author. (n.d.). *Title of changing page*. Website Name. Retrieved Month Day, Year, from URL**

Do not add a retrieval date to every webpage automatically.

Official APA guidance provides specific examples for webpages on websites.

Website Author vs. Website Name

One of the easiest website-citation mistakes is confusing the author with the website name.

Consider these questions:

1. Does the page show a named individual author?
2. If not, is a specific organization clearly responsible for the page?
3. Is that organization also the website name?

If a person wrote the page, that person may be the author while the organization remains the website name.

If an organization authored the page and the organization is also the website name, APA Style avoids repeating the same name in the source element.

The generator can format the fields you provide, but it cannot always determine the correct authorship relationship from website metadata alone.

What If the Website Has No Author?

First check whether an organization can legitimately be identified as the author.

A webpage without a named person is not automatically “no author.” Government agencies, universities, companies, nonprofits, and other groups can be authors.

If no author can be determined, the title moves into the author position in the reference, and the corresponding in-text citation uses the title according to APA rules.

Because missing-author and missing-date cases affect both the reference and in-text citation, they are covered in more detail in APA Citations With No Author or No Date.

What If the Website Has No Date?

If the specific page has no usable publication or update date, use n.d. for “no date.”

Do not substitute:

• the current year
• the year you accessed the page
• a site-wide copyright year
• a date from unrelated page metadata

A retrieval date is a separate element and does not replace the missing publication date.

Is Every Online Article a Webpage?

No.

The fact that something has a URL does not determine its APA source type.

Journal article

If the source is a scholarly article published in a journal, cite it as a journal article. The reference may need the journal title, volume, issue, pages or article number, and DOI.

Use the APA journal article citation generator for that workflow.

Report

If an organization issued a formal report, it may need report-specific information such as an issuing body or report number.

Book or ebook

A book accessed online remains a book. Use the APA book citation generator when citing the whole work.

Entire website

If you are simply mentioning an entire website rather than using a specific webpage as a source, a reference-list entry may not be required in the same way as it is for a specific page. Official APA guidance distinguishes referring to an entire website from citing a particular webpage.

Choosing the correct source type before formatting is more reliable than treating “URL” as a source category.

APA In-Text Citations for Webpages

For a normal webpage with an author and date, the in-text citation follows the APA author-date system.

Parenthetical

(Morgan, 2025)

Narrative

Morgan (2025)

If you quote directly from a webpage that does not have page numbers, an appropriate locator may be needed. Depending on the source, this can involve a paragraph number, section heading, or another useful locator that allows the reader to find the quoted material.

The citation generator can prepare locator information, but you should choose a locator that actually corresponds to the webpage you used.

What to Review After URL Lookup

If APA Citation Builder retrieves details from a public webpage, compare them with the page before accepting the record.

Check:

• Author: Is it the person or organization actually credited?
• Date: Is it the publication or relevant update date for this page?
• Title: Is it the page title rather than an SEO or browser title?
• Website name: Is it the correct larger site?
• URL: Does it point directly to the page you used?
• Source type: Is this really a webpage?

Automatic extraction cannot reliably resolve every website structure.

A metadata result marked as reviewed means that you reviewed the details against the source. It does not mean that the source was independently certified by APA Citation Builder or the American Psychological Association.

For more about that distinction, see Accuracy, Source Review, and Limitations.

Common Website Citation Mistakes

Treating every URL as a webpage

A journal article, book, report, dissertation, image, or video can all be accessed through a URL. Identify the work first.

Using the website name as the author without checking

Look for a named author or a clearly responsible organization.

Repeating an organization as both author and website name

When the organization author and website name are the same, the repeated site-name element is omitted.

Using a copyright year as the publication date

A footer copyright year often applies to the website generally, not to the specific page.

Using a “last reviewed” date as though the content was updated

A review date does not necessarily indicate that the content changed.

Adding a retrieval date to every webpage

Retrieval dates are reserved for content designed to change over time when the changing state matters and prior versions are not archived.

Trusting automatically extracted metadata without checking it

Metadata can save time, but it can also be incomplete or wrong. Compare the record with the source.

Add the Webpage to Your Reference Project

After reviewing the details, generate the reference and matching in-text citation, then add the source to your reference project.

From the main APA Citation Builder, you can keep supported source types together instead of creating each citation in isolation.

Before submitting your work, review the completed references in the document where you will use them. The APA reference page guide explains how to organize and check the final list after copying or exporting citations.