How to cite a website

Bluebook (22d ed.) citation format · B18 / R18.2 · Internet & electronic

Example

Caleb Madison, Tips and Tricks From a Crossword Prodigy, Atlantic: Good Word (Apr. 21, 2024), https://www.theatlantic.com/x.

What the citation needs

Required

Website name — The website’s name (R18.2.2).
URL — The web address, where you cite the source online (R18.2).

When they apply

Author — The author’s full name as it appears on the publication (R15.1; R16.2).
Page / document title — The title as it appears on the source. R8(a): capitalize every word except articles, conjunctions and prepositions of four or fewer letters, unless they begin the title or follow a colon.
Month — The month, abbreviated per T12.
Day — The day of the month.
Year — The year that goes in the date parenthetical at the end of the citation.
Time stamp — The point in a recording or post you are citing.
“last visited” date — R18.2.1(d): only where the page carries no date of its own.
Perma / archive URL — An archived copy’s address, such as a perma.cc link, given in brackets after the URL (R18.2.1(d)).
On file with — Where a reader can get an unpublished or hard-to-find source: what follows “on file with” — “author”, or the library or journal holding it (R17.1).

In a brief and in a law review

The Bluebook sets citations two ways: the Bluepages for court documents and legal memoranda, the Whitepages for law review footnotes. Here is the first example above as each one prints it, in its typeface.

Court documents (Bluepages)

Caleb Madison, Tips and Tricks From a Crossword Prodigy, Atlantic: Good Word (Apr. 21, 2024), https://www.theatlantic.com/x.

Law review footnotes (Whitepages)

Caleb Madison, Tips and Tricks From a Crossword Prodigy, Atlantic: Good Word (Apr. 21, 2024), https://www.theatlantic.com/x.

The words are the same in both; only the typeface changes.

Common mistakes

Each of these is a citation the checker refuses, with what it says is wrong and the corrected form.

Wrong

Caleb Madison, Tips and Tricks, Atlantic: Good Word, https://www.theatlantic.com/x.

Why

Website cite needs a date parenthetical or “(last visited …)” (Rule 18.2.1(a)).

Right

Caleb Madison, Tips and Tricks From a Crossword Prodigy, Atlantic: Good Word (Apr. 21, 2024), https://www.theatlantic.com/x.

Governing rules

B18 / R18.2

18 — the internet, electronic media & other nonprint resources.
18.2.1 — general internet citation principles.
18.2.2 — website citation (author, title, site, date, URL).
18.2.2(d) — the URL.

Build this citation with the generator, check one you have already written, or paste a whole list of footnotes to check them in order.

Related source types

Internet & electronic: