No Author, No Date, No Page Numbers: Citing a Website in MLA 9 When the Page Gives You Nothing
A web page with no author, no date and no page numbers still needs a Works Cited entry. What to put first, what to leave out, and how it reads in text.
MLA 9 Citation Generator: Works Cited and In-Text Citations
Create MLA 9 citations for websites, books and journal articles, with the Works Cited entry and the matching in-text form. Nothing is uploaded.
What MLA 9 asks for
MLA is the style used in language, literature and cultural studies. It is author-page in text, and the list at the end is called Works Cited rather than References. MLA 9, the current edition, asks for the same core elements in a fixed order: author, title of source, title of container, other contributors, version, number, publisher, publication date and location.
Most of those are optional, and a website usually needs five of them. The tool builds the entry from the ones you have and puts them in the order the style requires, with the punctuation MLA is fussy about.
How to cite a website in MLA 9
- Author, surname first, then the rest of the name as it appears on the page. If no person is named, start with the title of the page.
- Title of the page in quotation marks, with the main words capitalised and a full stop inside the closing quote.
- Title of the website in italics, followed by a comma.
- Publication date, in day-month-year form: 31 Mar. 2023, with the month abbreviated.
- Location, which for a web page is the URL without https://. Close with a full stop. In text, cite the author and the page number, or just the author when there is no page.
A worked example
The same WHO page cited in APA becomes: World Health Organization. "Depression." WHO, 31 Mar. 2023, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression.
The in-text form is (World Health Organization). No page number, because a web page has no stable pagination. A direct quotation from a web page with no page numbers takes a paragraph number instead: (World Health Organization, par. 4).
Mistakes worth avoiding
Keeping https:// in the URL. MLA 9 drops the protocol, and a reader can still follow the address.
Italicising the page title instead of the site name. The container is italic, the source is quoted.
Using a publication date that is not on the page. If the site shows only a copyright year, use that; if it shows nothing, say so rather than guessing.
Calling the list "Bibliography". In MLA it is Works Cited, and the heading is marked.
Where your sources go
They stay in the tab. The Works Cited entry is generated locally, and the URLs used to look up metadata are not kept on any server.
Blogs
Frequently asked questions
Does this generate MLA 9 or the older MLA 8?
MLA 9th edition, which keeps the container system MLA 8 introduced and tightens what counts as a container. Websites, books, journal articles, chapters, videos and reports are all supported, and the Works Cited entry and its matching in-text citation come from the same form.
What goes in the in-text citation when there is no page number?
Just the author, or the first words of the title when there is no author. Online sources are cited by author or title alone, and the page slot is left empty rather than filled with an invented number.
Can I cite a source I only have as a link?
Yes. Paste the URL and the title, author, site and date are collected where they can be read reliably. Anything that cannot be confirmed is left for you to complete instead of being guessed at. The citation engine runs from a style library bundled with the page, so it keeps working offline and your sources are never uploaded.
MLA 8 or MLA 9?
MLA 9, which is the current edition. It keeps the MLA 8 core-elements approach and mainly clarifies how to handle contributors, pseudonyms and repeated names. MLA 7 is a different shape and is only right for an older course that names it.
How do I cite two authors in MLA?
In Works Cited, the first author is surname-first and the second is name-first: Smith, John, and Mary Jones. In text, both names are given, joined by "and".
What is the container title?
The larger thing the source sits inside: the website for a web page, the journal for an article, the anthology for a short story. It is italicised and it is what tells a reader where to find the source.
Does MLA need a URL?
MLA 9 recommends it for online sources, without the protocol. It also allows a DOI when one exists, which is more stable than a URL.