How to Cite a Website in APA 7 — Free Generator & Examples

To cite a website in APA 7, use this format: Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of article or page. Website Name. https://url. For example: Smith, J. (2024, March 15). How to write a research paper. MasterClass. https://masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write.

The free citation generator handles the formatting automatically — fill in what you have, get the citation. Below is the rule-by-rule walkthrough for the edge cases: no author, no date, multiple authors, no page title, and more.

APA 7 website citation — the basic format

APA 7 uses a consistent author-date structure for web sources:

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of article or page. Website Name. URL

Each element in detail:

• Author: Last name, first initial(s). "Smith, J." for John Smith. "Smith, J. A." for John Alan Smith.
• Date: (2024, March 15) — full month name. Year only if month/day unknown: (2024). Use "n.d." (no date) if truly undated.
• Title: In sentence case (capitalize only first word and proper nouns), italicized for standalone pages.
• Website Name: Not italicized. "MasterClass" or "Harvard Business Review."
• URL: Full "https://" URL. No period at the end.

Fill these fields into the generator and it produces the formatted output. Skip unknown fields — the tool handles missing data per APA 7 rules automatically.

When the website has no author

Most organizational web pages don't have a bylined author. APA 7's rule: move the title to the start.

Format: Title of article or page. (Year, Month Day). Website Name. URL

Example: How to write a research paper. (2024, March 15). MasterClass. https://masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write.

In the generator, leave both author fields blank and fill in the rest. The tool applies the no-author rule automatically — the output starts with the title.

Watch for corporate authors. If the website itself is the author (e.g., the CDC publishes a page with no individual byline), cite the organization as the author:

Example: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. https://cdc.gov/covid/vaccine.

In the generator, put the organization name in the "Author Last Name" field and leave first name blank.

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When there's no publication date

APA 7 uses "n.d." (no date) for undated sources. In the generator, leave the year, month, and day fields blank. Output becomes:

Title of article. (n.d.). Website Name. https://url

In-text: (Author, n.d.) — for example (Smith, n.d.).

How hard should you look for a date? Check:

• Copyright line at the bottom of the page (often "© 2024")
• Publication date near the title
• "Last updated" text
• HTML meta tags in the page source (harder, but sometimes the only place)
• Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) can show approximate publication dates for older pages

If none of these yield a date, "n.d." is the correct answer. Don't guess — APA explicitly discourages inferred dates.

In-text citations for websites

APA 7 in-text uses (Author, Year) — or (Author, Year, p. X) for direct quotes. Websites rarely have page numbers, so for quotes you'd use paragraph numbers or section headings:

• (Smith, 2024) — standard
• (Smith, 2024, para. 5) — direct quote, 5th paragraph
• (Smith, 2024, "Methods" section) — direct quote from a section called "Methods"
• ("Title of article," 2024) — shortened title for no-author sources (quotes for titles in text)

The generator doesn't produce in-text citations — they're trivial once you have the References entry. Grab the author surname and year from the References version and you're done.

Citing specific website types

Blog posts: Treat as standard website. Italicize the blog post title.

News articles (online): Treat as website. If the source is a major news outlet (New York Times, The Guardian), use the outlet as website name. Do not italicize article titles in APA 7.

Wikipedia / encyclopedia entries: Include archive URL when possible. Format: Article title. (Year, Month Day). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=X&oldid=Y. Generate the base citation and manually adjust for the "In Wikipedia" wrapper.

Government reports online: Cite the government agency as author. Include report number if applicable.

Social media posts (Twitter, Instagram, TikTok): APA 7 has specific rules. Generate a basic citation and manually adjust per APA 7 section 10.15.

Podcasts: Actually a different source type in APA 7. Tool-generated website citations need manual adjustment.

YouTube videos: Use the YouTube source type in the generator instead — it applies the right format automatically.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I italicize the webpage title in APA 7?

Yes for standalone pages (blog posts, individual articles, standalone web content). No for pages that are part of a larger work (pages within an encyclopedia, entries in a database — those use quote marks). The generator italicizes by default, which is correct for most web sources.

What if the URL is really long — should I use a short link?

APA 7 allows shortened URLs (bit.ly, tinyurl) only if absolutely necessary for print. For digital documents, use the full URL. The generator preserves whatever URL you paste.

How do I cite a website I accessed on a specific date?

APA 7 doesn't require retrieval dates for most web sources. Include them only for content that is likely to change without archiving (wikis, live-updating dashboards). Format: Retrieved March 15, 2024, from https://url.

What if the author is the same as the website name?

Skip the website name to avoid redundancy. Example: American Psychological Association. (2024). APA style guide. https://apa.org. No second "American Psychological Association" needed.