First, the easy way: PERRLA
PERRLA builds a whole-website entry with the Webpage reference type. Choose Webpage, leave Page Title empty, and type the site's name in Website Name, the way the site writes it. With no page title, PERRLA treats the site itself as the work and puts its name in italics as the title. Paste the home page into URL (Web address), and set Retrieval Date to the day you visited (the Today button does it in one click). Leave the author out unless the site names a person as its creator or editor. If you add the organization as a Group Author (Organization) and it matches the website's name, PERRLA leaves it out for you, so the name prints once.
Skip the reference search for this one. A search reads a home page as a single page and fills in the home page's heading as a Page Title, like "World Health Organization (WHO)," which turns the entry into a page entry. If you do search, clear the Page Title before you save.
Using something from one page, report, or article on the site? Cite that instead: paste its URL or DOI into the reference search.
Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same works cited entry by hand.
The parts of the works cited entry
1. Title: the website's name
A whole website stands on its own, so its name is the title, in italics and title case, followed by a period. Write it the way the site writes it, in its logo, header, or home page title.
World Health Organization.
Don't copy extras from the browser tab. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing's tab reads "National Council of State Boards of Nursing | NCSBN," and the "| NCSBN" isn't part of the name.
2. Author: usually nobody
Most websites are run by an organization, not a person. When an organization runs a site named after itself, MLA doesn't list it as the author: its name appears once, as the title. So most whole-website entries start with the site's name.
National Council of State Boards of Nursing.
The exception is a site that names a person as its creator or editor, like a scholar's research project. That person goes first, last name first, with editor after the name when the site calls them its editor.
3. No separate publisher
A site named after the organization that runs it doesn't repeat that name as a publisher. The entry goes straight from the title to the date, if there is one, or the URL.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. www.ahrq.gov/.
That holds for government agencies too: AHRQ is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, but the site is AHRQ's own, under its own name.
4. Date
Most home pages don't carry a date for the site as a whole. When a site does give one, like the date it was last updated, put it after the title, written day, month, year.
No date for the site? Leave the date out and end the entry with an access date instead. Don't use the copyright year in the footer: it isn't a date for the site's content.
5. URL and access date
Give the home page's URL without https://, followed by a period. Then write Accessed and the day you visited, day first, with the month abbreviated (except May, June, and July).
www.who.int/. Accessed 30 Oct. 2026.
The access date is optional in MLA 9, but it's most useful for exactly this kind of source: a site that changes all the time and has no date of its own.
6. A passing mention: no entry needed
Just pointing your reader to a site, without quoting it, paraphrasing it, or discussing it? The MLA Style Center says you can name the site in your sentence and put its URL in parentheses, with no Works Cited entry.
Nurses can look up their state's licensure rules through the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (www.ncsbn.org).
Some instructors want an entry for every site you name, so check your assignment.
7. When to cite a page instead
As soon as you use something from one part of the site, like a fact, a definition, or a quotation, cite that page, not the whole site. A page is part of the website, so its title goes in quotation marks and the website's name becomes the container, in italics.
"Title of the Page." Name of the Website, Date, URL of the page.
Each page you use gets its own entry with its own URL. MLA doesn't want one entry for the site with the pages pointing back to it.
Examples
A website named after the organization that runs it
The World Health Organization's website. WHO runs the site under its own name, so that name is the title, and it isn't repeated as an author or a publisher. The home page shows no date for the site as a whole, so the entry ends with the day it was visited.
Works Cited
World Health Organization. www.who.int/. Accessed 30 Oct. 2026.
- In-text citation(World Health Organization)
- Narrative citationThe World Health Organization website offers …
A nursing organization's website
The website of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, the organization behind the NCLEX. Cite the whole site when you write about the site itself, like the licensure resources it offers, and a specific page for a fact. The site's name is the council's full name, without the "| NCSBN" from the browser tab or the Inc. from its copyright line. In the text, the long name shortens to its first noun phrase.
Works Cited
National Council of State Boards of Nursing. www.ncsbn.org/. Accessed 30 Oct. 2026.
- In-text citation(National Council)
- Narrative citationThe National Council of State Boards of Nursing website explains …
A government agency's website with a long name
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's website. The site's name and the agency are the same, so the entry goes straight from the title to the URL. In the text, the long name shortens to its first noun.
Works Cited
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. www.ahrq.gov/. Accessed 30 Oct. 2026.
- In-text citation(Agency)
- Narrative citationThe Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality website offers …
In-text citations
An MLA 9 in-text citation starts with whatever starts the Works Cited entry. For a whole website, that's almost always the site's name, in italics, just as it appears in the entry.
- A short name: (World Health Organization)
- A long name: shorten it to its first noun and any words before it, minus an opening A, An, or The: (National Council) for the National Council of State Boards of Nursing site, or (Agency) for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality site. Naming the site in your sentence often reads better.
- Name in your sentence: no parentheses needed: The World Health Organization website gathers fact sheets on a wide range of health topics.
- A site with a named creator: the creator's last name, like any author.
- A passing mention: the site's name and its URL in parentheses, with no entry: Nurses can look up their state's licensure rules through the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (www.ncsbn.org).
Websites have no page numbers, so don't add one, and don't count paragraphs. MLA never puts a year in the citation.
Common mistakes
- World Health Organization. World Health Organization. www.who.int/.World Health Organization. www.who.int/. Accessed 30 Oct. 2026.When an organization runs a site named after itself, MLA names it once, as the title, not again in front as the author.
- "World Health Organization." www.who.int/.World Health Organization. www.who.int/.A whole website is a complete work, so its name goes in italics. Quotation marks are for a single page within a site.
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, www.ahrq.gov/.Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. www.ahrq.gov/. Accessed 30 Oct. 2026.When a site is named after the organization that runs it, MLA leaves the publisher out so the name doesn't repeat.
- National Council of State Boards of Nursing | NCSBN.National Council of State Boards of Nursing.That's the browser tab, abbreviation and all. Use the site's name as the site itself presents it.
- Nearly half of U.S. adults have high blood pressure (CDC).Cite the CDC page the statistic is on, with its own Works Cited entry.A fact comes from a specific page. A whole-website entry is for discussing the site itself, not for information taken from one of its pages.
- (World Health Organization, 2026)(World Health Organization)That's APA thinking. MLA in-text citations don't take a year, and a website has no page to add.
Quick checklist
- Discussing or using the site as a whole? Give it an entry
- The site's name in italics, as the site writes it, not the browser tab
- Site named after its organization? The name appears once, as the title
- A date only if the site gives one for the whole site
- Home page URL without https://, then Accessed and the date
- Using one page? Cite that page instead
Questions students ask
Do I need a Works Cited entry for a website I only mention?
Not always. The MLA Style Center says a passing mention can be just the site's name in your sentence with its URL in parentheses. If you quote the site, paraphrase it, or discuss it in any detail, it needs an entry. When in doubt, or if your instructor asks, add one.
Should I cite the whole website or the specific page?
The page, whenever your information comes from one page. Give each page its own entry with its own URL. Cite the whole site only when you're writing about the site itself, like what it offers or who it serves.
Is a website's name italicized in MLA?
Yes, both in the Works Cited entry and in your sentences: World Health Organization, National Council of State Boards of Nursing. The title of a single page on the site goes in quotation marks instead.
What date do I use for a whole website?
The one the site gives for itself, like the date it was last updated. Most home pages don't give one, so leave the date out and add an access date at the end. The copyright year in the footer doesn't count.
Who is the author of a website?
Usually nobody, as far as the entry goes. When an organization runs a site named after itself, its name appears once, as the title. If the site credits a person as its creator or editor, that person goes first. Check the About or Credits page.
Do I cite the databases I searched, like CINAHL or PubMed?
Not just for naming them. Write something like "I searched CINAHL and PubMed for articles from 2020 to 2026" in your sentence, then give each article you use its own entry. If you read an article's full text in a database, the database's name goes in that article's entry as a second container.
Related guides
Rules checked against the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), chapter 5 (titles of self-contained works in italics, organizations as authors, when to leave out a publisher, dates, locations, and the optional access date) and chapter 6 (in-text citations and shortened titles), and the MLA Style Center's answers on giving a URL in your prose instead of an entry, the creator of a website, a separate entry for each web page, and author, publisher, and website names that are the same. Example sites opened by curl on October 30, 2026, to confirm each site's name, the organization behind it, its home page URL, and that the home page gives no date for the site; that visit is the access date.