How to Cite a Website in MLA | Format & Examples
An MLA website citation includes the author’s name, the title of the page (in quotation marks), the name of the website (in italics), the publication date, and the URL (without “https://”).
If the author is unknown, start with the title of the page instead. If the publication date is unknown, or if the content is likely to change over time, add an access date at the end instead.
Websites don’t usually have page numbers, so the in-text citation is just the author name in parentheses. If you already named the author in your sentence, you don’t need to add a parenthetical citation.
You can also use our free MLA Citation Generator to effortlessly create website citations.
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The format differs for other types of online content, such as YouTube videos, TED Talks, and podcasts.
Citing online articles
The format for citing an article from an online newspaper, magazine, or blog is the same as a general web page citation. If the article is a PDF of a print article, the format differs slightly.
Write the article title in title case (all major words capitalized). Use the most recent publication date on the page, including the day, month, and year if available.
MLA format | Author last name, First name. “Title of Article.” Website Name, Day Month Year, URL. |
MLA Works Cited entry | Smith, Helena. “The Women Who Brought Down Greece’s Golden Dawn.” The Guardian, 22 Oct. 2020, www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/22/the-women-who-brought-down-greeces-golden-dawn. |
MLA in-text citation | (Smith) |
Note, however, that a different format is used when citing online articles from academic journals.
Learn how to cite journal articles in MLA
Citing web pages with no author or date
If no author is credited, leave out this element, and start with the title of the page or article instead.
Use a shortened version of the title in your in-text citation. The shortened title must match the first words of your Works Cited entry.
MLA format | “Title of Article.” Website Name, Day Month Year, URL. |
MLA Works Cited entry | “US Election 2020: A Guide to the Final Presidential Debate.” BBC News, 21 Oct. 2020, www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54620868. |
MLA in-text citation | (“US Election 2020”) |
If no publication date is available, leave out this element, and include the date on which you accessed the page at the end.
MLA format | “Title of Article.” Website Name, URL. Accessed Day Month Year. |
MLA Works Cited entry | “Citing Sources and Referencing.” Scribbr, www.scribbr.com/category/citing-sources. Accessed 16 July 2019. |
MLA in-text citation | (“Citing Sources”) |
Note that a specific format exists for citing online dictionary entries.
Citing an entire website
If you cite a whole website, there is usually no named author, so the Works Cited entry begins with the name of the website in italics.
If the website has a publication or copyright date (usually found in the footer), include this; if not, add the date when you accessed the website at the end of the citation.
MLA format | Website Name. Day Month Year, URL. |
MLA Works Cited entry | Scribbr. www.scribbr.com. Accessed 11 July 2019. |
MLA in-text citation | (Scribbr) |
When should you cite a whole website?
Most of the time, you should cite the specific page or article where you found the information. However, you might have to cite the entire website if you are giving a general overview of its content, referring only to the homepage, or quoting text that appears on many different pages across the site (such as a company’s slogan).
If you cite multiple pages or articles from the same website, you should include a separate Works Cited entry for each one.
Publishers in MLA website citations
If the website is published by an organization with a different name than the website itself, you should include this in the citation too. The website’s publisher is usually found somewhere in the footer, often next to a copyright symbol.
If the publisher is the same as the name of the website, you leave it out of the citation to avoid repetition.
Website with different publisher | Website the same as publisher |
---|---|
The MLA Style Center. Modern Language Association of America, 2019, style.mla.org. | Scribbr. www.scribbr.com. Accessed 10 June 2019. |
“Antibiotic Resistance and Food Safety.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 5 Sept. 2018, www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/challenges/antibiotic-resistance.html. | “CEU Expresses Solidarity with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.” Central European U, 3 July 2019, www.ceu.edu/article/2019-07-03/ceu-expresses-solidarity-hungarian-academy-sciences. |
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Frequently asked questions about MLA style
- Are titles capitalized in MLA?
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Yes. MLA style uses title case, which means that all principal words (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and some conjunctions) are capitalized.
This applies to titles of sources as well as the title of, and subheadings in, your paper. Use MLA capitalization style even when the original source title uses different capitalization.
- Are article titles italicized in MLA?
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The title of an article is not italicized in MLA style, but placed in quotation marks. This applies to articles from journals, newspapers, websites, or any other publication. Use italics for the title of the source where the article was published. For example:
“A Complete Guide to MLA Citation” is published on the Scribbr website.Use the same formatting in the Works Cited entry and when referring to the article in the text itself.
- What is the easiest way to create MLA citations?
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The fastest and most accurate way to create MLA citations is by using Scribbr’s MLA Citation Generator.
Search by book title, page URL, or journal DOI to automatically generate flawless citations, or cite manually using the simple citation forms.
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If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.