No author, no date, no page.

First, look again

1. Check the top and bottom of the page, the byline under the headline, and any About page. An organization that wrote the page is its author.
2. Look for a date near the title, at the foot of the page, or in the page’s “updated” line. A copyright year for the whole site is not the page’s date.
3. For a PDF, look at the cover, the title page and the back page for the agency, year and report number.
4. If a detail really is not there, use the style’s rule below. Never invent one, and never write “Anonymous” unless the source itself says so.

No author

MLA 9

Start the entry with the title. In the text, a short title in quotation marks or italics, as it appears in the entry. When an organization is both author and publisher, MLA starts with the title too.

APA 7

An organization that wrote it is the author. With no author at all, the title moves to the author position and the citation uses the title.

Chicago

Start the note and the bibliography entry with the title. Organizations stand as authors.

Harvard

The title takes the author position: in italics for a whole work, in single quotation marks for a part of one.

The CDC’s page “About Sleep” names no person; the CDC wrote and published it. As Format writes it:

No date

MLA 9

Leave the date out and add the date you read it at the end: Accessed 2 Nov. 2026. The in-text citation does not change.

APA 7

Write (n.d.) for “no date” in the entry and the text. Add “Retrieved Month Day, Year, from” before the URL when the page is meant to change, such as a dictionary or encyclopedia entry.

Chicago

Give the date you accessed it: accessed November 2, 2026. Author-date citations use n.d.

Harvard

Write (no date) in place of the year, in the reference and in the text.

Dictionary and encyclopedia entries online carry no date, because they are updated as they go. As Format writes them:

No page numbers

MLA 9

Leave the page out: (Bernstein). If the source numbers its paragraphs, use them: (Bernstein, par. 4). Never count screens or printed pages.

APA 7

For a quotation, give another way to find it: a paragraph number (para. 4), a heading, or a time stamp for audio and video (APA 7, 8.28).

Chicago

A heading or paragraph number in the note, or nothing when the source is short.

Each source page on this site has a section on missing details for that kind of source; start with a web page with no author in MLA or in APA.

Cite a source with missing details

Common mistakes

1. “Anonymous” as the author. Only when the source is signed Anonymous. Otherwise start with the title.
2. The website name as the author. A site name such as A List Apart is not an author unless the organization behind it wrote the page.
3. n.d. in MLA. MLA leaves an unknown date out and adds an access date; n.d. belongs to APA and Chicago author-date.
4. The site’s copyright year as the date. A footer year covers the whole site. Use it only if the page has no date of its own and your instructor accepts it.

Questions