An MLA citation for a website is a works-cited entry that follows the 9th edition of the MLA Handbook's container-based core-elements model, in which every source is described with the same ordered set of facts assembled with consistent punctuation. The MLA 9 template for a website runs in this order: Author, Title of the Web Page (in quotation marks), Title of the Website (in italics), Contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication Date, and Location (typically a URL or DOI). When a field is missing — and websites frequently lack an author, a publisher, or a clear date — MLA 9 says to skip it rather than replace it, letting the surrounding punctuation bridge the gap. The final product is a single hanging-indent paragraph that begins with the author's surname, ends with a URL or DOI, and obeys the conventions graders actually check for: full first names, Day Month Year dates, italicized container titles, quotation marks around shorter works, and no http:// or https:// protocol in front of the URL. Use the free MLA Citation Generator to produce that entry from the same template, in your browser.
What MLA 9 Asks For in a Website Citation
MLA 9 treats every source — a website, a book, a journal article, or a newspaper — with the same ordered list of core elements. That uniformity is the largest shift from older MLA editions, which kept separate rules per source type. For a website, the nine core elements are:
- Author — a person, an organization, or a screen name used in place of a real name.
- Title of the Source — the title of the specific web page or article you actually read.
- Title of the Container — the larger website that hosts the page.
- Contributors — editors, translators, illustrators; included only when they shaped the version you consulted.
- Version — used for things like an "archived version" or an explicitly numbered edition.
- Number — relevant mainly for journals; rarely needed for a plain website.
- Publisher — who runs the site, when it differs from the container title.
- Publication Date — Day Month Year for the version you actually consulted.
- Location — a URL, or a DOI when the page has one.
Skip any element you cannot find. MLA 9 deliberately leaves blanks instead of inventing data, and the MLA Citation Generator follows the same rule: missing fields drop out cleanly and do not throw errors.
Field by Field: What to Enter for a Website
When you sit down to fill in the form, here is where each piece of information usually comes from on a typical web page:
- Author or contributor. Look for a byline near the top of the article, an "About the author" box at the bottom, or a staff credit on the site's masthead. If the page is signed only by an organization (for example, "Pew Research Center"), use that organization as the author.
- Title of the page. This is the headline of the specific article or page, not the website name. It goes in quotation marks, with the closing period placed inside the closing quotation mark.
- Title of the website. This is the name of the larger site — the brand that hosts the page (The New York Times, BBC News, a personal blog, an organization's site). It is set in italics.
- Version. Skip unless the page clearly indicates it is an "archived version," an "updated edition," or similar.
- Number. Rare for websites. Skip unless you are citing a numbered report or issue.
- Publisher. Often identical to the container. Skip when the publisher and the website title are the same.
- Publication date. Look for a "Published," "Posted on," or "Last updated" stamp. Use the most recent date that applies to the version you read. MLA formats dates as Day Month Year (for example, 12 Mar. 2024).
- Location. A stable URL, or a DOI when the page has one. MLA 9 recommends dropping the http:// or https:// protocol in a works-cited list.
If the page lacks an author, begin the entry with the title. If both the author and the page title are missing, the citation is not salvageable — find a different source.
Generate an MLA Website Citation in Three Steps
- Choose "Website" as the source type. The MLA Citation Generator shares one form with books, journal articles, and newspaper articles, so picking the right source type up front sets the correct italics-versus-quotation-marks behavior and the right label conventions for the entry you are about to build.
- Fill in the author name(s), page title, website name, publication date, and URL. Only enter the fields you actually have. Empty fields are skipped, so a partial source still produces a usable entry rather than a broken one.
- Copy the formatted entry and paste it into your works-cited page. The generator handles italics, quotation marks, the period inside quotes, author inversion, and the URL-without-protocol rule automatically. Open the MLA Citation Generator in your browser and nothing you type is uploaded, logged, or stored.
MLA 9 vs APA 7 for Website Citations
Students who write across English, humanities, and social-science courses eventually need both styles. APA follows a different set of rules for the same web page, and the APA Citation Generator builds APA 7th edition entries from the same one-form workflow. The table below summarizes how the two systems handle the same web page side by side.
| Element | MLA 9 (Works-Cited Entry) | APA 7 (Reference Entry) |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Last, First (full first name) | Last, F. M. (initials) |
| Date | Day Month Year, near end of entry | (Year, Month Day), right after the author |
| Title of the page or article | "In Quotation Marks" | In sentence case, no quotation marks, not italicized |
| Title of the website | In italics | In italics |
| URL | Without the http(s):// protocol | With the full https:// link |
| No author found | Begin the entry with the page title | Begin the entry with the page title |
| No date found | Omit the date field entirely | Use (n.d.) in place of the year |
The MLA Citation Generator is MLA-specific, so it always produces MLA conventions — no risk of accidentally pasting an APA entry into your English paper. The APA Citation Generator applies the equivalent rules with year-first dates and author initials for APA courses.
MLA 9 Punctuation Rules the Tool Applies
Worth calling out the punctuation behaviors the MLA Citation Generator handles for you, because they are exactly what graders scan for in a works-cited list:
- Author inversion. One author becomes Last, First; two authors become Last, First, and First Last (only the first author is inverted); three or more collapse to Last, First, et al.
- Italics vs. quotation marks. The standalone work (the website) is italicized; the shorter part inside it (the web page or article) is wrapped in quotation marks.
- Period inside quotes. When the title of the web page ends in a period — even the period added by MLA — that period goes inside the closing quotation mark.
- Date abbreviations. Months are abbreviated per MLA — Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec. — except May, June, and July, which stay spelled out in full.
- URLs without protocol. The http:// or https:// is dropped automatically. The one exception MLA keeps is the DOI, which retains its https://doi.org/ prefix.
- Missing fields are skipped. Partial sources still generate a usable entry rather than throwing an error.
- Privacy. Everything is computed locally in your browser; nothing you type is uploaded, logged, or stored.
The MLA Style Center's Works Cited: A Quick Guide and Purdue OWL's MLA Works Cited Page: Basic Format page are the two reference points the generator's templates are cross-checked against.
Common MLA Website Citation Mistakes
Even careful students repeat the same handful of errors when citing web pages. Watch out for these slips:
- Adding https:// to the URL. MLA 9 recommends omitting the protocol in the works-cited list. The generator removes it for you, but if you ever type the URL by hand, leave the protocol off.
- Treating the website name as the author. If a human byline exists, that human is the author. The website name belongs in the container slot, italicized.
- Putting the website title in quotation marks. The website is a standalone work and gets italics; only the page or article inside it gets quotation marks.
- Putting the page title in italics. The reverse of the previous mistake: a short article or web page is a part, not a container, so it is quoted.
- Using initials for first names. That is APA. MLA 9 spells out the full first name.
- Placing the date right after the author. That is APA too. In MLA 9 the date sits near the end of the entry, just before the URL.
- Writing "n.d." for no date. APA uses (n.d.); MLA simply omits the date field and lets the surrounding punctuation close around the gap.
- Citing a permalink that 404s. Use the most stable URL the page actually exposes, and confirm it still resolves before you submit the paper.
Each of these slips is easy to make and easy to fix once you know the rule, and the MLA Citation Generator applies every one of them in the background so the output is consistent the first time you copy it.