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Citing a website with no author or no date
Most web pages that seem to have no author do have one: the organisation behind them. A missing date has a standard answer in every style. Here is what to write, and what never to make up.
When there is no named author
The organisation is usually the author
A page on a government, charity or company site with no byline was written by the organisation. Give its full name as the author: World Health Organization, not WHO.
APA 7 drops the repeat
When the author and the site name are the same, APA 7 leaves the site name out of the reference, so the organisation appears once. The generator does this for you.
Truly anonymous pages
If no person or organisation can be identified, APA and Harvard move the title into the author's position and MLA starts the entry with the title. Write Anonymous only if the page itself is signed that way.
When there is no date
APA and Harvard: n.d.
Write n.d., for no date, where the year would go: (World Health Organization, n.d.). APA adds a retrieval date only for a page designed to change over time.
MLA: leave it out
MLA simply omits the missing date and recommends an access date at the end of the entry instead.
Never borrow the copyright year
The year in the site's footer is its copyright notice. It changes every January while the page stays the same, so it is not the date of what you read.
A last updated date counts
If the page shows when it was last updated, and the update applies to the content you read, that date can be used as the page's date.
In-text citations
APA and Harvard
Use the organisation, or a shortened title in quotation marks if the title had to take the author's place, followed by n.d.: (World Health Organization, n.d.).
MLA
Use the organisation, or a shortened title in quotation marks, with no date: (World Health Organization).
Before you cite it at all
Check who stands behind the page
A page with no author, no date and no organisation behind it is a weak source. If a stronger one exists, such as the report the page summarises, cite that instead.
Questions
Is the website's name the author?
Only when the organisation that runs the site wrote the page. On a news site or a blog with no byline, the site is the publisher, and the title may move into the author's place.
What does n.d. mean?
No date. APA and Harvard write it where the year would go when a source carries no date.
Can I use the year in the copyright notice?
No. That is the year of the site's copyright, not the date the page was written or updated.
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