On this page
Updated . Example details checked against cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html, page dated May 15, 2024.
The MLA format
Pattern
“Title of the Page.” Name of the Website, Day Month Year, URL.
Look for a person’s name at the top or bottom of the page first. If there is none, decide whether an organization is the author:
- The organization wrote the page and runs the site (the CDC on cdc.gov): start with the title. MLA skips an author who is also the publisher.
- An organization wrote it for someone else’s site: list the organization as author, written as it appears, without “The” at the start.
- Nobody is named at all: start with the title.
The entry is alphabetized by the first word of the title, ignoring A, An and The.
A real example
Works Cited entry
“About Sleep.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 15 May 2024, www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html.
In-text citation
(“About Sleep”)
When details are missing
- No date either: end with the date you read it: “Accessed 3 Nov. 2026.”
- A long title in the text: shorten it to the first noun phrase, (“About Sleep”), and keep it in quotation marks so it matches the entry.
- Several pages from one site: each page gets its own entry, alphabetized by title.
The same page with no date, read on November 3, 2026
Works Cited entry
“About Sleep.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/sleep/about/index.html. Accessed 3 Nov. 2026.
In-text citation
(“About Sleep”)
Common mistakes
- Writing “Anonymous” or “n.a.” MLA has no placeholder for a missing author. The title moves up.
- Naming the organization twice. If it is the author and the publisher, it appears once, as the website.
- A citation that does not match the entry. The words in parentheses must be the first words of the entry, so a reader can find it.
Or let Format do it.
Paste the link and Format fills in what the page publishes, and leaves the author empty when there is none. Format writes the Works Cited entry and the in-text citation in MLA 9, exactly as shown above, and builds the Works Cited page when you export to Word or PDF. MLA and APA are free.
Questions
Is a government agency an author?
Yes, when it wrote the page on someone else’s site. On its own site, MLA starts with the title instead, because the agency is the publisher.
How do I shorten the title in the citation?
Use the first noun phrase or the first few words, in the same quotation marks or italics as the entry.
More citation guides
The same source in other styles
Similar sources in MLA
Every source kind is on the MLA page, and every style is on How to cite.