How to Cite a Website in APA 7 (With Examples)

An APA 7 reference for a webpage has four parts: author, date, title and source. The pattern is:

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of the page. Site Name. URL

The page title is in italics. The reference examples below are shown as plain text, which can't show italics, so each one is followed by a line naming the italic part. Everything else is in normal type.

This guide walks through the cases you will actually meet: a named author, an organization as author, no date, no author, and pages that change all the time. Each one ends with the matching in-text citation. If you'd rather fill in a form, our free APA citation generator builds the basic reference as you type.

The four parts, one at a time

Author. Write the surname, a comma, then initials: Patel, R. With two authors, put an ampersand before the last one: Patel, R., & Moore, K. If an organization wrote the page and no person is credited, the organization is the author.

Date. Give the date as exactly as the page does. That might be a year, a month and year, or a full date. If the page shows a "last updated" date for that specific content, use it. Ignore "last reviewed" dates. APA says a reviewed page hasn't necessarily changed.

Title. Use sentence case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. Put the title in italics.

Source. For most pages this is the website name, followed by the URL. There's one exception. When the author and the site name are the same, leave out the site name so it isn't repeated.

Example 1: a webpage with an individual author

Patel, R. (2025, March 3). How to start a vegetable garden on a balcony. Green Living Weekly. https://www.example.com/balcony-garden

Italic part: How to start a vegetable garden on a balcony.

• Parenthetical: (Patel, 2025)
• Narrative: Patel (2025) suggests starting with herbs.

The in-text citation uses the year only, even though the reference has the full date.

Example 2: a group author

Organizations, government agencies and companies are group authors. Write the name in full. This is APA's own example:

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

Italic part: The top 10 causes of death.

The site name is missing because it would repeat the author. For a government page, use the specific agency as the author. Parent agencies go in the source position, like this: National Institute of Mental Health. (2018, July). Anxiety disorders. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. URL.

• Parenthetical: (World Health Organization, 2018)
• Narrative: World Health Organization (2018)

If a group has a well-known abbreviation, you can define it the first time: (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2020). After that, use (NIMH, 2020).

Example 3: no date

Many pages don't show a publication date. Write "n.d.", short for "no date", in the date position:

Moore, K. (n.d.). Choosing a first houseplant. Plant Notes. https://www.example.com/first-houseplant

Italic part: Choosing a first houseplant.

• Parenthetical: (Moore, n.d.)
• Narrative: Moore (n.d.)

Use n.d. in the in-text citation too, never a blank or a guessed year.

Example 4: no author

When no person or organization is named, the title moves to the front, into the author position. The date follows it:

Coffee and sleep: What the research says. (2024, May 2). Sleep Basics. https://www.example.com/coffee-and-sleep

The italic part is now the first element: Coffee and sleep: What the research says.

In the text, use the title instead of the author. Write it in title case, keep it in italics, and shorten it if it's long:

• Parenthetical: (Coffee and Sleep, 2024)
• Narrative: Coffee and Sleep (2024)

Don't write "Anonymous" unless the page is actually signed "Anonymous". If both the author and the date are missing, combine the two rules: Title. (n.d.). Site Name. URL.

Example 5: a page that changes over time

Most webpage references have no retrieval date. APA adds one only when the page is designed to change over time and isn't archived. Think of a live counter, a dashboard or a page of current figures. APA's example is the U.S. population clock:

U.S. Census Bureau. (n.d.). U.S. and world population clock. U.S. Department of Commerce. Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://www.census.gov/popclock/

Italic part: U.S. and world population clock.

• Parenthetical: (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.)
• Narrative: U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.)

Note the wording: "Retrieved Month Day, Year, from" goes right before the URL. A normal article or blog post doesn't need this, even if you read it months ago.

In-text citations: quick rules

Every in-text citation points to exactly one entry in your reference list. The two forms work the same way for every example above:

• Parenthetical puts the author and year in brackets: (Patel, 2025).
• Narrative works the name into the sentence and puts the year in brackets: Patel (2025) found...
• Two authors: (Patel & Moore, 2025) in brackets, but "Patel and Moore (2025)" in a sentence. The ampersand is only for the parenthetical form.
• Three or more authors: first author plus "et al." every time, starting with the first citation: (Patel et al., 2025).

Using the generator, and what to fix by hand

The APA citation generator has a Website / Web Page source type with fields for author, title, site name, URL and year. It formats names as "Last, F. M.", adds the ampersand before the final author, and fills in "n.d." when you leave the year blank. An organization such as World Health Organization is kept whole as a group author (wrap any other group name in curly braces, like {NASA}), and with the author left blank the title moves in front of the date. It runs in your browser, and you paste in the details yourself. It doesn't look up a URL for you.

A few things still need a quick edit after you copy the result:

• Italics. The output is plain text. Italicize the page title in your word processor.
• Month and day. The form takes a year only. Add the month and day if the page shows them.
• Retrieval dates. The Date Accessed field is used by other styles. The APA output leaves it out, so add "Retrieved ... from" yourself on the rare pages that need it.
• Sentence case. The title is used exactly as typed, so type it in sentence case.

If your class uses another style, the MLA citation generator handles MLA 9. The citation generator switches between APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE and more from one form.

A last check before you submit

• Every source you cite in the text has its own entry in the reference list.
• The year in the text matches the year in the reference.
• Webpage titles are in sentence case and italics.
• The site name is dropped when it matches the author.
• A retrieval date appears only on pages designed to change.

For anything unusual, the APA Style webpage reference examples are the official source.