To cite a website in APA format, you need four core pieces: the author’s name, the publication date, the title of the page, and the URL. These elements appear in a specific order in your reference list, and a shortened version (author and year) goes in your paper wherever you mention the source. Here’s exactly how to put it all together.
The Basic Reference List Format
A standard APA reference for a webpage follows this structure:
Last name, First initial. (Year, Month Day). Title of the page. Site Name. https://www.example.com/page
A few formatting details matter here. The page title is italicized, and only the first word of the title (plus any proper nouns) is capitalized. The site name is written in plain text, not italicized. The URL appears at the very end with no period after it. If the author and the site name are the same (common with organizations), you drop the site name to avoid repeating yourself.
Here’s a concrete example:
Bologna, C. (2019, October 31). Why some people with anxiety love watching horror movies. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anxiety-love-watching-horror-movies_l_5d277587e4b02a5a5d57b59e
How In-Text Citations Work
Every time you reference information from a website in your paper, you include a brief in-text citation. APA uses the author-date method, meaning you provide the author’s last name and the year of publication. You have two options for placing this information.
A parenthetical citation puts the details in parentheses at the end of the sentence: “Horror films may actually help some viewers manage their anxiety (Bologna, 2019).” A narrative citation works the author’s name directly into the sentence: “Bologna (2019) found that horror films may help some viewers manage their anxiety.”
If you’re quoting exact words, you also need to point the reader to a specific location in the source. Since most webpages don’t have page numbers, use a paragraph number or section heading instead. That looks like this: (Bologna, 2019, para. 4). For paraphrasing, the paragraph number is encouraged but not strictly required.
When the Author Is an Organization
Many webpages are published by government agencies, nonprofits, or other groups rather than individual people. In that case, the organization is the author. Write out the full name in the reference list entry:
National Institute of Mental Health. (2018, July). Anxiety disorders. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders
Notice the site name is omitted here because “National Institute of Mental Health” is both the author and the site. Including it twice would be redundant. For in-text citations, use the full organization name the first time: (National Institute of Mental Health, 2018). If the organization has a well-known abbreviation, you can introduce it in brackets on first use and then use the abbreviation afterward: (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2018), then (NIMH, 2018) for subsequent citations.
Handling Missing Information
Webpages frequently lack one or more of the standard reference elements. APA has a specific workaround for each missing piece.
- No author. Move the page title into the author position. Your in-text citation uses a shortened version of the title in italics: (Shortened Title, 2021).
- No date. Replace the year with “n.d.” (short for “no date”) in both the reference entry and the in-text citation: (Smith, n.d.).
- No site name. Simply leave that element out. The reference goes straight from the title to the URL.
- No author and no date. Combine the rules. The title moves to the author spot, and “n.d.” replaces the date: Title of page. (n.d.). Site Name. URL
A real example with no date: U.S. Census Bureau. (n.d.). About the American Community Survey. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/about.html
News Websites vs. Newspapers
APA draws a line between traditional newspapers that publish in print (like The New York Times) and news websites that exist only online (like CNN or HuffPost). The distinction changes how you format the reference.
For an article from a print newspaper’s website, the newspaper title goes in the source element in italics, similar to how you’d cite a journal: Author. (Date). Title of article. The New York Times. URL. For a news-only website with no associated print paper, you treat it like a regular webpage: italicize the article title, write the site name in plain text.
If you’re unsure whether a source counts as a newspaper, ask yourself whether it has a print edition. If yes, use newspaper formatting. If it’s purely online, use the standard webpage format described above.
When to Include a Retrieval Date
Most website citations do not need a retrieval date. You only add one when the content is unarchived and specifically designed to change over time. Think of pages like a Wikipedia article, a social media profile, or a live data dashboard that gets updated regularly without preserving past versions.
When a retrieval date is needed, it goes right before the URL in this format:
Author. (n.d.). Title. Site Name. Retrieved January 15, 2025, from https://www.example.com/page
For a standard blog post, news article, or organizational webpage that was published on a specific date and isn’t expected to change, skip the retrieval date entirely.
Quick Reference Checklist
Before submitting your paper, run through each website citation and confirm these points:
- Author. Listed as last name, first initial for individuals, or the full organization name for group authors.
- Date. In parentheses, as specific as the webpage provides (year alone, year and month, or full date). Use “n.d.” if no date exists.
- Title. Italicized, in sentence case (only capitalize the first word and proper nouns).
- Site name. In plain text, title case. Omit if it matches the author.
- URL. Full link, no period at the end, no “Retrieved from” unless the content changes over time.
- In-text citation. Author and year appear every time you reference the source, with a paragraph or section number added for direct quotes.
Getting these elements right covers the vast majority of website sources you’ll encounter in a research paper. The format stays consistent whether you’re citing a government health page, a news article, or a personal blog post. The only things that shift are which elements are available and whether the source qualifies as a newspaper.