Cite a website in MLA 9
Citing a plain website in MLA 9 is harder than it looks because most pages lack a clear author, date, or publisher. MLA 9 (2021) tells you what to do when those fields are missing, and how to format the access date when the page might change later.
MLA 9 rules for a website
- Use the page author if there is one, otherwise the organisation, otherwise the page title.
- Use the publication date if visible, otherwise the copyright year, otherwise n.d.
- Page title is in quotes, site name (container) is italicized.
- Include the full URL at the end without a trailing period in APA.
- Add an access or retrieval date if the page content is likely to change.
- Format the access date as 'Accessed DD Mon. YYYY' at the end.
Worked example
MLA 9 · websiteA real website formatted using the MLA 9 rules above.
NASA "About NASA." *NASA*, 12 Mar. 2024, www.nasa.gov/about/. Accessed 15 Jan. 2025.
Build your own MLA 9 reference
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Citation fields
MLA 9 website citation guide
MLA 9 and the container system for web pages
MLA 9 does not give you a separate template for every kind of source. Instead it uses one flexible model built from nine ordered elements, and a website is just those elements filled in: Author. "Title of the Page." Title of the Website, other contributors, version, number, publisher, publication date, location. For an ordinary web page most of those slots are empty, leaving Author, page title in quotation marks, the website name in italics as the container, the date, and the URL as the location. Understanding that you are filling a single template, not memorising a web-specific rule, is what makes MLA 9 click.
The page title goes in quotation marks because it is part of a larger whole, and the website name is italicised because it is that larger whole — the container. This mirror image of APA, where the small work is plain and the large work is italic, is one of the most common points of confusion when students move between the two styles. In MLA the small work gets quotation marks and the big container gets italics, every time.
Authors, sponsors, and the publication date
Find the author the same way you would for any source: a named individual first, and only the page title moved forward if no author and no clear corporate author exist. MLA 9 distinguishes the author from the publisher or sponsor: a page written by a journalist on a news site has that journalist as author and the news organisation as the container, while a corporate About page may have the organisation as both. When the website's name and its publisher are effectively the same, MLA tells you not to repeat the name.
The publication date is given day-month-year with the month abbreviated, as 12 Aug. 2023. Use the date the specific page was published or last updated, not today's date. If the page shows no date at all, MLA 9 allows you to omit it and rely on the access date instead. Unlike older MLA, version 9 does not require you to include the URL's http protocol fuss — give the address as it appears, and you may drop https:// only if your instructor prefers it, though keeping it is safest.
Access dates, the URL, and in-text citation
MLA 9 recommends an access date for online sources because web pages change, and it is essential when the page has no publication date. Place it at the very end after the URL, written as Accessed 15 Jan. 2025. The URL itself is the location element and comes before the access date. Remove tracking parameters and never use a library proxy link, since the point of the location element is that any reader can reach the source.
MLA in-text citations are author-page, but web pages usually have no page numbers, so you cite by author name alone: (Lewis) or, in a signal phrase, Lewis argues that... Do not invent a paragraph number unless the source itself numbers its paragraphs. The first word of your Works Cited entry must match the in-text citation, which is why getting the author element right matters so much. Paste the URL into the generator below, then check that the page title is in quotation marks and the site name is italic before you finalise the entry.