Quick answer: In Harvard referencing, a website is referenced as Author (Year) Title of web page. Available at: URL (Accessed: date). For example: Office for National Statistics (2024) Internet access in Great Britain. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/technology (Accessed: 14 May 2025). In the text, cite the author and year, for example (Office for National Statistics, 2024). The rest of this guide explains how to find each element, what to do when a page has no author or no date, and how to avoid the errors that cost marks most often.
Websites cause more referencing trouble than any other source type: unlike a book, a web page does not present its author, date and title in predictable places. The author may be an organisation rather than a person, the date may be a “last updated” note buried at the foot of the page, and the title in the browser tab may differ from the heading on the page. Working through the four elements one at a time removes most of the difficulty.
Find the four elements: author, date, title and URL
Start with the author. Look first for a named individual at the top or foot of the article; news sites and blogs usually credit one. If no individual is named, the author is normally the organisation responsible for the site, known as a corporate author: a government department, a charity, a university or a company. Use the organisation’s full name, for example (British Heart Foundation, 2023), not an abbreviation, unless your university guide explicitly allows the short form after a first full citation.
Next, find the date. Look for a publication date near the headline, a “last updated” note, or a copyright year at the foot of the page. Where a page shows both a publication date and an update date, use the publication date if you are citing the original content, and note the update in your own records. If the page genuinely carries no date at all, use (no date) — the next section explains this in full. Never invent a date from the age of the statistics on the page, and never use the date you accessed it as a substitute for a publication date; the access date has its own place at the end of the reference.
The title is the title of the specific page or article you used, not the name of the whole website. If you read an article called “How to save for a deposit” on a money advice site, the article title goes in your reference, and the site name is added only where your university’s version of Harvard requires it. Check the heading on the page itself rather than the browser tab, which is often shortened. Titles of web pages are written in italics in Cite Them Right Harvard style, following the same rule as book titles.
Finally, copy the URL of the exact page you read, not the site’s homepage and not a search results page. Strip out tracking additions such as “?utm_source=” and anything after them, because those parameters record how you arrived at the page rather than identifying it. Use the stable address for the article or publication page, and test the link before submitting: a broken or redirected URL suggests the reference was assembled carelessly, even when everything else is correct.
Cite the website in your text
In-text citations for websites follow the same author-date pattern as any other Harvard source. If you name the author in your sentence, put only the year in brackets: “The Office for National Statistics (2024) reports that…”. If you do not name the author, put both elements in brackets at the end of the clause: “…internet access continues to rise (Office for National Statistics, 2024)”. Every in-text citation must have a matching entry in your reference list, and every reference list entry must be cited in the text.
For a source with two authors, name both in the citation: (Smith and Jones, 2023). For three or more authors, name the first followed by “et al.”: (Patel et al., 2022). In the reference list, however, list all authors up to the limit your guide sets, usually three, before using “et al.”. If you cite two sources by the same author in the same year, add a letter to distinguish them, such as (2023a) and (2023b), and match those letters in the reference list.
Web pages have no page numbers, so a direct quotation cannot carry one. If you quote a short passage, cite author and year as usual; where the page has numbered paragraphs you may add that location, for example (World Health Organization, 2023, para. 4), but only if your university guide allows it. For paraphrases, author and year are enough.
What to do when there is no author
A missing author is the most common website problem, and it has a straightforward solution. First, look harder: check the “About us” page, the article footer and the site’s masthead, because the responsible organisation is often named there even when the article page itself shows no byline. If an organisation can reasonably be identified as responsible for the content, use it as the corporate author.
If no author or organisation can be found at all, use the title of the page in place of the author, in both the citation and the reference list. For example, a page titled “Healthy eating for teenagers” published in 2023 would be cited as (Healthy eating for teenagers, 2023) and listed as Healthy eating for teenagers (2023). Available at: URL (Accessed: date). Note that the title is italicised in the reference list entry, which keeps the entry recognisable in an alphabetical list.
A page with neither author nor organisation behind it should also prompt a quality question. Academic writing rests on sources a reader can evaluate, and a page that hides who wrote it and when is harder to trust. Before citing such a page, ask whether a more authoritative source says the same thing: a government statistics release or a university page will almost always serve you better.
What to do when there is no date
When a page genuinely shows no publication or update date, use (no date) in place of the year, in both the citation and the reference list. For example: National Trust (no date) Visiting historic houses with children. Available at: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit (Accessed: 3 June 2025). In the text, this appears as (National Trust, no date). Some university guides prefer the abbreviation (n.d.) instead; both mean the same thing, so follow your institution’s version and use it consistently.
Before settling on (no date), make a genuine effort to find one. Check the foot of the page for a copyright year, look for a “last reviewed” note, and check whether the page sits within a dated news or blog section. A copyright year on its own is a weak date, but where nothing else exists, some guides accept it as the publication year; check your institution’s guidance before relying on it.
When neither author nor date can be found, combine the two rules: the title stands in for the author and (no date) stands in for the year. For example: Guide to student budgeting (no date). Available at: URL (Accessed: date). Such entries sort under the title in your reference list. They are valid references, but a reference list full of them signals weak sourcing, so use them sparingly.
Worked examples you can adapt
The examples below use illustrative web addresses: swap in the real address of the page you actually used. A government statistics page with an organisational author follows the basic pattern exactly:
Office for National Statistics (2024) Internet access in Great Britain: 2024. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/technology (Accessed: 14 May 2025).
A charity page with a named author adds the individual’s name in surname-initial form:
Ahmed, S. (2023) How to eat well on a student budget. Available at: https://www.examplecharity.org.uk/student-budget-eating (Accessed: 2 April 2025).
A university news article is referenced the same way, with the article title rather than the university’s name as the title element:
Patel, R. (2024) ‘Universities report record applications’. Available at: https://www.example-university.ac.uk/news/2024-record-applications (Accessed: 20 September 2024).
Note the difference from a journal article: for an ordinary web page, the page title itself is italicised, while a newspaper article keeps its title in single quotation marks with the newspaper title in italics. If your guide treats online news as a web page rather than a newspaper article, follow its version; consistency within your list matters more than either choice alone.
A page with no author and a page with no date complete the set:
Healthy eating for teenagers (2023). Available at: https://www.examplehealth.org.uk/teenagers-eating (Accessed: 11 January 2025).
National Trust (no date) Visiting historic houses with children. Available at: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit (Accessed: 3 June 2025).
Adapt these patterns by swapping in your own author, year, title, URL and access date, keeping the punctuation and order identical. A reference list that follows one pattern throughout reads as careful work; one that changes pattern from entry to entry does not.
Avoid the errors that lose marks
The most frequent error is citing the homepage instead of the article page: a reference to a site’s homepage tells the reader nothing about which article you used. The second is omitting the access date, which matters because web pages change. The third is copying a URL with tracking parameters or a session ID attached, which may break for the next reader. The fourth is mismatched in-text and list entries: a citation in the text with no list entry, or a list entry never cited.
Two smaller errors are also common: italicising the website name instead of the page title, and putting the access date in the wrong format. Cite Them Right uses (Accessed: day month year), for example (Accessed: 14 May 2025). Finally, remember that Harvard is not one universal style: universities adapt Cite Them Right in small ways, particularly for online sources. Always check your institution’s referencing guide for the final word.
Check your references in seconds
Once you have gathered the author, date, title and URL for each website, the formatting itself is quick work — but it is also where small slips creep in, especially across a long reference list. Reading each entry back against the four-element pattern, and ticking off every in-text citation against its list entry, catches most mistakes before submission.
Our free Harvard referencing generator formats website references for you once you have the author, year, title and URL, and it is a fast way to confirm your punctuation and order before you submit. If you are bringing a whole dissertation reference list into shape, or you are unsure whether a source is strong enough to cite at all, our wider assignment and dissertation support can help you review the list as a whole rather than entry by entry.
Frequently asked questions
Do I always need an access date for a website?
Yes, in Cite Them Right Harvard style. Web pages can be edited or removed without notice, so the access date records the version you consulted. Printed sources do not need one, but anything you read online does.
What if a website has no author at all?
Use the organisation responsible for the site as a corporate author if one can be identified. If no author or organisation can be found, use the page title in place of the author, in both the citation and the reference list.
Should I use (no date) or (n.d.)?
Both mean the same thing. Cite Them Right uses (no date), while some university guides prefer (n.d.). Follow your institution’s version and use it consistently throughout your work.
How do I cite a website in the text a second time?
Use the same short form each time: (Office for National Statistics, 2024). There is no shortened form in Harvard style. If you cite two pages by the same author in the same year, distinguish them with letters, such as (2024a) and (2024b).
Can I cite a whole website rather than a single page?
Only in the rare case where you are referring to the site as a whole, and even then it is better to cite the specific pages you used. A reference to a homepage does not let the reader verify your claim, and markers treat it as weak sourcing.
Does the URL need to be the exact page I read?
Yes. Link to the article or publication page itself, not the homepage or a search results page, and remove tracking parameters. Test the link before submitting to make sure it still resolves.
Website referencing comes down to four elements, found carefully and presented consistently: author, date, title and URL, with an access date recording the version you read. Find each element on the page itself, use the title where no author exists and (no date) where no date exists, and check every citation against your list before submitting. Do that, and your website references will stand up to the same scrutiny as the rest of your work.