How to cite a website in Chicago (notes & bibliography)
A web page or online article. Chicago's footnote-based system. Standard for literature, history, and the arts.
Quick answer
To cite a website in Chicago (notes & bibliography), include the author(s), year, title, and container or publisher details. A concrete example is below.
Example
Purdue Online Writing Lab, "What is a citation?," (2024). https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/using_research/index.html
This example is rendered with the official CSL definition for Chicago (notes & bibliography). For the exact style required by your journal, paste your references into DEEPNOTIS and pick that style from the dropdown — the app covers 2,800+ variants.
What you need
For a website, Chicago (notes & bibliography) expects these fields at minimum:
- Author or organization
- Year of publication
- Page title
- Website / organization name
- URL
- Access date (some styles)
Common mistakes
- Citing a dynamic page without an access date — crucial because the content can change.
- Using the URL as the title. The title is the page heading; the URL is a separate field.
- Mixing bibliography formatting with in-text citation rules. Reference-list entries and in-text cites follow different patterns — use the style's official guide for both.
- Forgetting the DOI. When a DOI exists, most styles now require it (usually as a full https://doi.org/… URL).
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Last updated: 5 May 2026