Citing a website in your research paper or essay can be tricky and frustrating, but there are a few techniques you can use to find the publication date. To find when an article or page was published, check the site and its URL for a date. Alternatively, do a simple Google search for the site using a special URL operator that can reveal the date. If you need to know when the site itself was published, you can search the website’s source code. Although you can find the publication date of most sites, you may not always find it. If this happens, cite the website as a “no date” page.
Checking the Page and URL
1 ) Look underneath the headline of an article or blog post. Most news sites and blogs will list the date underneath the title of the article, along with the name of the author. Check for the date right under the title or at the start of the article’s text.[1]
There may be a 1-sentence secondary headline or an image between the title of the post and the date. Keep scrolling to see if the date is listed below the secondary headline or image.
Some articles may have been updated after their publication date. When this is the case, you should see a disclaimer at the beginning or the end of the article that says when it was edited and why.
Variation: If you don’t see the date on the article, see if you can go back to the website’s homepage or search engine to look for it that way. You may see the publication date listed next to the article’s link or thumbnail.
- Check the bottom of the web page for a copyright date. Scroll to the bottom of the page and look at the information listed there. You may see copyright information or a publication note. Read this information to see if it provides an original date of publication. However, keep in mind that this date may be the last time the website was updated rather than the publication date.
- The date a site was updated is the last time anything was added or changed on the site. That means the information you’re reading may have been published at an earlier date. However, a recent copyright or update means that the site is active and being updated, so the information may be trustworthy.
- Look at the section of the article that contains a short bio of the author. Sometimes, the date may be right above or below it.
Tip: A copyright date is usually only listed by the year and does not contain a specific month or day.
See if the date is part of the URL. Look in the address bar and scroll through the URL. Some blogs and websites autofill the web address with the date that a post was written. You may find the full date, or you might just find the month and the year.- Make sure you are on the web page dedicated to the individual post and not an archive or index page. Click on the post’s headline to confirm you’re on the post-specific page.
- Many blogs edit the URL so it’s shorter and easier to search, so you may not find the date there.
Look at the timestamps on any comments to get an estimate. While this is not the most accurate method, it can give you a sense on when the article was first published. Look next to the username in the comments to find the time when the comment was written. Scroll until you find the earliest date. If the user interacted when the article was published, this will be the closest date to publication.- You can’t use this date to cite a website. However, it can help you gauge when the website was published, so you’ll have an idea of how old the information is. If it seems recent, you might decide to go ahead and use the website but cite it as “no date.”
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