How to Cite a Website in MLA (9th Edition)

MLA 9 website citations follow this order: Author. "Title of Page." Website Name, Publisher (if different), Date, URL. Skip any piece that genuinely doesn't exist on the page, but don't skip pieces just because they're hard to find.

The Core Format

Here's the full Works Cited template for a webpage:

Author Last, First. "Title of the Page." Name of Website, Publisher, Publication Date, URL.

A worked example from a news site:

Chen, Maria. "Why Coastal Cities Are Rethinking Sea Walls." The Atlantic, 14 Mar. 2025, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/03/sea-walls-coastal.

Notice the formatting rules baked in:

• Author is Last, First for the first author only.
• Page title goes in quotation marks.
• Website name is italicized.
• Date uses the day-month-year format with abbreviated months (Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.).
• URL drops the "https://" prefix. Just start at the domain.
• The whole entry ends with a period.

In-Text Citations

For a parenthetical citation, you use the author's last name. No page number, since most web pages aren't paginated:

(Chen)

If you name the author in your sentence, you don't repeat it in parentheses. So "Chen argues that sea walls are obsolete" needs no parenthetical at all.

If the source has paragraph numbers or named sections, you can add them:

(Chen, par. 4)

Only do this if the page itself numbers them. Don't count paragraphs yourself.

When There's No Author

This is the most common student snag. If a page has no listed author, you skip the author slot entirely and start with the title.

Works Cited entry:

"Climate Adaptation Strategies for Coastal Communities." NOAA Climate.gov, 22 Jan. 2024, www.climate.gov/adaptation/coastal-strategies.

In-text, you use a shortened version of the title in quotation marks:

("Climate Adaptation")

Pick the first one or two meaningful words of the title. Skip articles like "the" or "a" when shortening.

Important: an organization is not "no author." If NOAA wrote the page and no individual is named, NOAA is the author. The entry becomes:

NOAA. "Climate Adaptation Strategies for Coastal Communities." NOAA Climate.gov, 22 Jan. 2024, www.climate.gov/adaptation/coastal-strategies.

When the author and the website name are identical, you can omit the website name to avoid repeating yourself.

When There's No Date

If you can't find a publication or update date on the page, use "n.d." (no date) in the date slot:

"Citation Basics." Purdue Online Writing Lab, n.d., owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.

Don't use the date you accessed the page in place of a publication date. MLA 9 treats access dates as optional, and they go at the very end of the entry when you include them. You'd add an access date if the page might change or disappear (a wiki, a frequently-updated stats page, social media):

"Citation Basics." Purdue Online Writing Lab, n.d., owl.purdue.edu/owl/. Accessed 12 May 2026.

When There's No Title

Rare, but it happens with blog posts that are just dated entries or stub pages. Describe the content in plain text, no quotation marks, no italics:

Smith, Aisha. Blog comment. Modern Linguistics Quarterly, 3 Feb. 2025, modlingq.com/posts/syntax-debate.

URLs and Permalinks

If the page offers a permalink or DOI, use that instead of the live URL. DOIs start with "https://doi.org/" and you keep the "https://" prefix for DOIs but not for regular URLs. That's the one exception.

If a URL is extremely long, MLA 9 lets you use a shortened DOI or a stable permalink from the publisher. Don't use tinyurl or bit.ly links. Your reader needs to verify the source.

Quick Checklist Before You Submit

Before you turn anything in, scan your Works Cited page for these:

1. Authors in Last, First format (first author only).
2. Page titles in quotation marks, website names in italics.
3. Dates as 14 Mar. 2025, not 3/14/25 or March 14, 2025.
4. URLs without "https://" (except DOIs).
5. Hanging indent on every entry. First line flush left, subsequent lines indented half an inch.
6. Entries alphabetized by the first word, ignoring "A," "An," and "The."

That last one trips up a lot of students. An entry starting with "The New York Times" alphabetizes under N, not T.

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