Books are easy: author, year, title, publisher. Websites are awkward, because they frequently lack exactly the details the template asks for. Below is the basic form, then what to do when something is missing.
The basic form
APA 7:
Author, A. (Year, Month Day). Title of page. Site Name. URL
World Health Organization. (2023, March 14). Physical activity recommendations. https://www.who.int/example
Harvard:
World Health Organization (2023) Physical activity recommendations. Available at: https://www.who.int/example (Accessed: 4 September 2026).
MLA 9:
"Physical Activity Recommendations." World Health Organization, 14 Mar. 2023, www.who.int/example.
Note the difference: Harvard and MLA want an access date; APA 7 only wants one if the content changes continuously.
When details are missing
No author
Use the organisation behind the site. If there is none — an anonymous blog, a wiki entry — the title moves into the author's slot, and the in-text citation becomes the first few words of the title in quotation marks: ("Physical Activity Recommendations," 2023).
Never use "Anonymous" unless the page actually says so.
No date
Write (n.d.). Look in the footer and in the URL first — many sites hide the year there. Do not use the copyright year at the bottom of the page: that belongs to the site, not the page.
No page title
Describe the content in square brackets: [Overview of application deadlines]. It is an accepted fallback in all three styles.
Four cases people get stuck on
A PDF on a website
Treat it as what it is. If it is a report with an author and a publisher, cite it as a report — not as a web page. The URL goes at the end.
Social media
The author is the account holder, the title is the first ~20 words of the post, and the handle comes along:
World Health Organization [@WHO]. (2024, June 2). New guidance published today… [Post]. X. https://x.com/example
Wikipedia
First check whether you are allowed to at all — many subjects do not accept it as a source. If you may, cite the permanent version — click "Permanent link" in the menu — because the article may have changed by the time your work is read.
Pages that may disappear
News articles and press releases get moved and deleted. Save a copy at the Internet Archive and cite the archived link alongside the original. It takes ten seconds and saves the citation.
The short checklist
- Who is behind it? (person → organisation → title)
- When was the page published or updated? (not the copyright year)
- What is the page called, and what is the site called? Those are two fields.
- Is the URL the direct address of the content — not a search result or a session link?
- Might the page disappear? Then archive it.
Answer those five and you can build the citation in any style. The template is the easy part; the details are the work.