THE IN-DEPTH GUIDE TO APA WEBSITE CITATIONS

• Hannah Berry (Ph.D.)
• Published on 17-04-2021
• Updated on30-06-2021

This page details all you need to know about how to cite a website in APA style. It has been compiled by experts, and the information comes from the most recent version of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th Edition).

THE FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS OF A WEBPAGE REFERENCE

An APA citation for a webpage should include the following information:

• The Author Surname followed by their Initial(s). Alternatively, the Name of the Group Author.
• (The publication date, typically in the form: Year, Month Day).
• The title of the webpage in italics with the first word capitalised.
• The Title of the Website with the Important Words Capitalised.
• The URL (in the form: https://www.URL) or a DOI if one is provided (in the form: https://doi.org/DOI)

Once you have gathered this information, you should organise the details in the following way for a page with a named author:

Author Surname, Initial(s). (Publication Date). Title of webpage. Title of Website. https://www.URL

For example:

Holland, O. (2020, October 19). Nazca lines: Archaeologists discover 2,000-year-old cat figure in Peru. CNN Style. https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/nazca-lines-peru-cat/index.html

As this shows, you don’t need to add a full stop at the end of the URL or DOI for online sources. This is different from most print sources, which typically end with a full stop after the reference.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ONLINE ARTICLE AND A NEWS WEBSITE?

Note that the above example is taken from a page on a news site (CNN). These sites publish online articles but don’t have associated daily or weekly newspapers that are published in print. Some examples of such sites are BBC News, MSNBC, and Vox.

HOW TO GENERATE AN APA IN-TEXT CITATION FOR A WEBSITE

The above reference, which should appear at the end of your paper, is just one part of the overall documentation for a source. The other part is an in-text reference, of which there are two kinds: narrative and parenthetical. The first of these requires you to weave the name of the author into your text and follow it with the publication year in round brackets. The second requires you to place the author’s surname and the publication year in round brackets together. As such, the source mentioned above could be referenced in your text in each of the following ways:

Narrative: Holland (2020).

Parenthetical: (Holland, 2020).

As these examples demonstrate, only the publication year (and not the day and month) should appear in your in-text reference.

SOME QUICK STYLE POINTS FOR TALKING ABOUT ONLINE SOURCES

When discussing online sources in the body of an APA paper, note that the word “Internet” is always capitalised, but words like “website,” “webpage,” and “online” are not. Note also that “webpage” is written as one word, rather than two.

HOW TO REFERENCE AN ENTIRE WEBSITE

If you discuss an entire site in your essay (rather than a specific page), then you don’t need to create a full APA citation for a website in your reference list. You should simply provide the name of the site in your text and include the relevant URL in round brackets afterwards, like so:

An early model for online consumer-to-consumer sales was provided by eBay (www.ebay.com). 

If you are writing online, you can simply hyperlink the name of the site in your text. The URL doesn’t need to appear separately:

As a result, eBay became an early success story during the dot-com bubble.

WHAT’S A DOI AND WHEN SHOULD I USE ONE?

DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier. DOIs are considered more stable than URLs and are mainly used for online journal articles and academic sources (for which you should see our other, more detailed guide). If a webpage that is not a journal article does come with a DOI,
then you should refer to the DOI rather than the URL.

WHAT’S THE APA CITATION FOR WEBPAGES WITH GROUP AUTHORS?

Many pages that are written by organisations or government departments won’t name a specific author. There are slightly different rules for referencing these kinds of sources.

PAGES WRITTEN BY GROUPS OR ORGANISATIONS

If a webpage for an organisation does not name a particular author, then you should use the organisation’s name in your reference. If the name of the organisation is also the same as the title of the website, then you should omit the title after the webpage to avoid repetition.
As such, the layout for this kind of source would be as follows:

Name of Organisation or Group. (Publication Date). Title of webpage. https://www.URL

For example:

Planned Parenthood. (2020). Health and wellness. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/health-and-wellness

The name of the organisation should also appear in your text:

(Planned Parenthood, 2020)

PAGES BY GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS

For a page written by a government agency or department, use the name of the department in place of the author. If the department is a subsidiary of any larger organisations, then these should also be included after the title of the page, like so:

Name of Department or Agency. (Publication Date). Title of webpage. Parent Organisation(s). https://www.URL  

For example:

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (2020, September 15). Researchers identify Covid-19 health disparities in Massachusetts. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2020/researchers-identify-covid-19-health-disparities-massachusetts

In your text, include the name of the department or agency in full (without any parent organisations), like so:

(National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, 2020) 

HOW DO I KNOW WHICH DATE TO USE?

Wherever possible, you should give complete dates for your sources, including the month, day and year the source was published. As the above examples show, however, some sources won’t list a complete date, in which case you should give as much information as possible: either the year and the month or the year alone.

DO I NEED TO INCLUDE A RETRIEVAL DATE?

As long as you’re able to provide some form of date for the website you want to reference, then generally you don’t also need to include the date that you retrieved the material. However, if you want to reference a page that is designed to change over time but that does not record updates and changes, then you should include a retrieval date. You should also use the abbreviation “n.d.” (for “no date”) where the publication date would normally occur in the reference. As such, the layout for this kind of reference would be as follows:

Author Surname, Initial(s). (n.d.). Title of webpage. Title of Website. Retrieved Date, from https://www.URL

Or, for a page written by an organisation or group whose name is the same as the site:

Name of Organisation or Group. (n.d.). Title of webpage. Retrieved Date, from https://www.URL

For example:

Goodreads. (n.d.). Most read this week in fantasy. Retrieved October 28, 2020, from https://www.goodreads.com/genres/most_read/fantasy 

For these kinds of sites with no publication date that are referenced using a retrieval date, you should also use “n.d.” whenever you refer to them in your text:

(Goodreads, n.d.)

UPDATED PAGES AND REVIEWED MATERIAL

Some pages also include dates detailing when they were last updated or reviewed. If this is the case, then you should include the date of the latest update in your reference, but you don’t need to include the date of the most recent review. This is because, even if a source has been reviewed, that does not necessarily mean that it has been changed.

REFERENCES

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Goodreads. (n.d.). Most read this week in fantasy. Retrieved October 28, 2020, from https://www.goodreads.com/genres/most_read/fantasy 

Holland, O. (2020, October 19). Nazca lines: Archaeologists discover 2,000-year-old cat figure in Peru. CNN Style. https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/nazca-lines-peru-cat/index.html

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (2020, September 15). Researchers identify Covid-19 health disparities in Massachusetts. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2020/researchers-identify-covid-19-health-disparities-massachusetts

Planned Parenthood. (2020). Health and wellness. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/health-and-wellness