How to Reference a Website in Harvard Style (Format + 8 Worked Examples)

Websites are now the most common source in undergraduate reference lists — and the most commonly mangled. The failures are rarely about effort; they are about treating a web page like a book with a URL stapled on. A page has no publisher and no place of publication, it can change after you read it, and its author is often an organisation rather than a person. Harvard's website format exists precisely to handle those three facts, which is why it looks different from the book and journal formats in our Harvard referencing guide.

One caution before the format: Harvard is a family of styles, not a single rulebook. This guide follows Cite Them Right Harvard, the variant most UK and Australian institutions adopt. Your university's own guide always wins where the two differ — the differences are small, but markers mark against their own version.

The reference list format, element by element

The list itself is alphabetical by author, exactly like your books and journals. Website entries do not get their own section unless your institution asks for one.

In-text citations

The in-text citation is only ever the author and the year — never the URL. The URL lives in the reference list, and pasting it into a sentence is one of the fastest ways to look like you do not understand the system.

• One author: (Nguyen, 2025), or Nguyen (2025) argues that…
• Two authors: name both — (Patel and Brooks, 2024).
• Three or more authors: first author plus et al. — (Sharma et al., 2026).
• Direct quotation from a page: pages have no page numbers, so quote with the paragraph number where you can: (Nguyen, 2025, para. 4). Keep web quotations short, and prefer a paraphrase with the citation kept, using the method in our guide to paraphrasing without plagiarising.
• Organisation as author: first mention in full, with the abbreviation if you will reuse it: (World Health Organization [WHO], 2025), then (WHO, 2025) afterwards.

Eight worked examples

1. A page with a named author

The standard case. Surname plus initial, year, the page title in italics — note that everything after the title is plain text.

2. An organisation as author

Government bodies, charities and companies publish a large share of the pages students cite. Write the organisation in full, with no initials, and cite it in text exactly as it appears here.

3. A government statistics page

Statistics pages are updated in place, so the year is the year of the release you actually used, and the access date does real work. If the page shows a newer release than the one you read, cite the one you read.

4. An online news article

News pages usually carry a byline — use the journalist as the author, not the outlet. If there is genuinely no byline, the outlet becomes the author, as in example 2.

5. A blog post

Same shape again: the post's author, the post's title in italics. The blog's name is not added separately in Cite Them Right Harvard — the URL carries it.

6. A YouTube video

The channel name stands as the author when no personal name is given. In text: (Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, 2025). If you quote the narration, give the timestamp instead of a paragraph number: (Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, 2025, 03:42).

7. A PDF report hosted on a website

A report is cited by its content, not its container: author, year, report title in italics, then the URL of the PDF itself — not the landing page you downloaded it from.

8. No author, no date

When a page names no author, the title moves into the author's position and the entry alphabetises by its first main word. (n.d.) replaces the year in both the list and your in-text citation: (Tenancy rights in Victoria, n.d.). Treat undated, unauthored pages as weak evidence — cite them for facts about themselves, not as the backbone of an argument.

The mistakes that cost marks

• The missing access date. The single most common website error. In Harvard it is not optional decoration; without it the entry is incomplete — the mirror image of the APA rules in our APA vs Harvard comparison.
• The URL in the sentence. A pasted link inside your paragraph breaks the author–date system and reads as unfinished work.
• Google as author. A search engine is a tool you used to find the page, not the page's author. Find the name on the page itself — a byline, an About page, or the publishing organisation.
• Italics the wrong way round. The page title is italic; the URL, the access date and “Available at:” are not.
• Guessing a date. A copied or estimated year is worse than (n.d.): it is a small act of fabrication, and markers read it that way.
• Homepages instead of pages. Cite the exact page you read. A homepage URL tells the reader nothing about where your claim came from.

The 60-second website check

• Author found on the page itself — person or organisation, spelled as the page spells it?
• Year taken from the page or its release note — or honestly marked (n.d.)?
• Page title copied in full, in italics?
• Full direct URL, no shortener, pointing at the page you read?
• Access date in the (Accessed: Day Month Year) format — today's date, if you read it today?
• In text, only (Author, Year) — no link anywhere in the sentence?

Run this check against the websites already sitting in your draft and most lists clean up in minutes. If referencing is eating hours that belong to the writing itself, our assignment support service checks reference lists against your institution's Harvard variant and flags every entry that would lose marks — before your marker sees it.