How to cite a website in IEEE

The IEEE format for citing a website is:

[#] A. A. Author, "Title of webpage," Name of Website, Month Year. [Online]. Available: URL. [Accessed: Day-Month-Year].

Examples

[1] E. Karlsson, "What rural broadband data actually shows," Rural Policy Institute, Aug. 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.ruralpolicy.org/broadband-data. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2024].

Standard case: bracketed reference number, individual author with initials before surname, page title in quotation marks and sentence case, website italicized in title case, month and year with abbreviated month, [Online] descriptor, Available: with URL, access date in brackets with day-month-year.

Webpage or YouTube URL
Paste the full URL of the webpage — fetches instantly.
Generated citation (IEEE)
J. A. Smith, The Title of the Work. Publisher Name, 2024.
Click the citation above to edit it directly.
Generate bibliography
Tip: Always double-check your citation against the IEEE guidelines.

Other IEEE source types

Switch citation style

IEEE citation fields explained

Reference number

The bracketed reference number assigned in order of first appearance in the text. Format: [1], [2], [3], etc. The number is the source's identifier throughout the paper. Once a source is assigned a number, that number is used for every subsequent reference to it. Numbers do not change based on alphabetical order or chronological order - they are assigned strictly by order of first citation in the text.
Author

Format the author's name as A. A. Author with initials before the surname (no inversion). For two authors, use "and": A. A. Author and B. B. Other. For three or more authors, IEEE permits two formats - list all authors or use "et al."; check your venue's preference. Typically, list up to six authors; for seven or more, list the first author and use "et al." Initials are separated by spaces with periods after each: A. A. Bhatt.
Title of webpage

The page title in quotation marks. IEEE uses sentence case for titles within quotation marks: capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. The quotation marks treat the page as a stand-alone short work, equivalent to how IEEE formats article titles.
Website name

The website's name in italics and title case (a contrast to the page title's sentence case). Capitalize all major words. The italics signal that the website is the container - the periodical-equivalent in IEEE's reference structure.
Date

Month and year, with the month abbreviated to three letters (Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.): Mar. 2021. May, June, and July are not abbreviated; January through April, August through December are. Use the publication date shown on the page itself. If only a year is shown, use that year alone.
[Online] format descriptor

The bracketed phrase [Online] identifies the source as digital. This is required for all online sources in IEEE - the descriptor signals to the reader that the source is electronic. Do not use "Online" without brackets, and do not omit the descriptor.
Available

The phrase Available: precedes the URL. The URL follows directly after the colon and a space. End the entry with the URL followed by a period.
Access date

The access date in square brackets with the prefix Accessed:: [Accessed: 14-Mar-2024]. IEEE uses day-month-year separated by hyphens with the month abbreviated. The access date is required for all online sources in IEEE.

Examples of website citations in IEEE

Page with named author and date

[1] E. Karlsson, "What rural broadband data actually shows," Rural Policy Institute, Aug. 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.ruralpolicy.org/broadband-data. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2024].

Standard case: bracketed reference number, individual author with initials before surname, page title in quotation marks and sentence case, website italicized in title case, month and year with abbreviated month, [Online] descriptor, Available: with URL, access date in brackets with day-month-year.

Organization as author

[2] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Tickborne diseases of the United States," CDC.gov, June 2023. [Online]. Available: https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/diseases. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2024].

For an organizational author, use the organization's full name without initials and without inversion. Note: "June" is not abbreviated in IEEE because it has only four letters.

Page with no listed author

[3] "The history of standardized testing in U.S. public schools," Education Reform Institute, Oct. 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.edreform.org/history-testing. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2024].

With no individual or organizational author identifiable, the page title moves to the author position with the citation beginning at the title. The title retains its quotation marks. The website name still gets italics in its standard position.

Page with no date

[4] Merriam-Webster, "Hermeneutic," Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. [Online]. Available: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hermeneutic. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2024].

For pages with no publication date, omit the date slot entirely. The access date provides the only temporal anchoring. Do not write "no date" or "(n.d.)" - IEEE simply omits the date when none is available.

IEEE standards document on the IEEE website

[5] IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic, IEEE Std 754-2019. [Online]. Available: https://standards.ieee.org/standard/754-2019.html. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2024].

For IEEE-published standards, the standard's title is italicized as the work itself, followed by the IEEE Std identifier. The author position is omitted; the standard is the work. This format applies only to formally published standards, not to general IEEE webpages.

IEEE edge cases for Website

Tricky citations don't have to be tricky. Pick a scenario to see the rule and a worked example.

Scenario 01
IEEE's numbered system vs. author-date styles

This is the rule that catches students new to IEEE. IEEE uses numbered references - sources are numbered in order of first appearance in the text, and in-text citations use the bracketed number, not the author and date. APA, Harvard, and MLA all use author-date or author-page conventions; IEEE is structurally different. Mixing IEEE's reference list with author-date in-text citations is a common error. The reference list and the in-text citation system are tightly coupled in IEEE.

Scenario 02
Online news article on a news website

News articles use the IEEE periodical template, not the webpage template. The article title is in quotation marks, the news outlet name is italicized as a periodical, and the volume/issue/pagination apply if printed in addition to online. Treat news articles like magazine articles, not like webpages - the same distinction that other styles maintain.

Scenario 03
Whole website cited as a source

To cite an entire website rather than a specific page, use the website itself as the work, with the website name in the title slot (italicized): [#] The Margins, Halfway House Audio. [Online]. Available: https://www.themargins.com. [Accessed: Day-Month-Year]. The author position is filled by the website's editor, sponsoring organization, or the website's name itself if no editor is identifiable.

Scenario 04
Page in a database

For pages accessed through a database, identify the database in italics with its URL: [#] A. A. Author, "Title," Database Name, Year. [Online]. Available: URL. [Accessed: Day-Month-Year]. The database name fills the website slot; the URL is the database URL.

Scenario 05
Page with no date and no author

Move the page title to the author position and omit the date entirely: [#] "Title of page," Website Name. [Online]. Available: URL. [Accessed: Day-Month-Year]. Two missing fields require both substitutions in their respective slots. The access date is essential here as the only temporal anchor.

Scenario 06
Wikipedia entry

For Wikipedia entries, use the entry title in the author position (Wikipedia entries are collaboratively authored), Wikipedia in italics as the website, and a permalink URL pointing to the specific revision: [#] "Coastal redevelopment," Wikipedia, Mar. 2024. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Coastal_redevelopment&oldid=1213094782. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2024]. The permalink ensures retrievability of the specific version.

Scenario 07
URL that has changed since access

If the URL has changed since you accessed the page, use the URL where you originally accessed it. Do not silently substitute a new URL. The access date in your citation establishes when that URL pointed to the content you used. If the original URL no longer resolves and you preserved an archived version (Wayback Machine), cite the archived version with the archive URL.

Scenario 08
IEEE-published technical document

For documents published by IEEE itself (white papers, technical guides, conference proceedings on the IEEE website), follow IEEE's specific document type - proceedings, standards, or whitepaper templates may apply rather than the webpage template. Consult the IEEE Editorial Style Manual for document-specific formats. The [Online] descriptor still applies for digital access.

IEEE in-text citations

In-text citation format

IEEE uses bracketed numbered citations: the source's reference number in square brackets, with no author or date in the in-text citation. Numbers correspond to the order of first appearance in the text and the position in the reference list.

Paraphrase

Broadband access in rural counties remains uneven across regions [1].

Direct quote with no page numbers

Karlsson describes the gap as "a structural underinvestment, not a market signal" [1]. The reference number identifies the source; the quotation comes from that source. Page numbers are not used in IEEE in-text citations for unpaginated webpages.

Author named in the sentence

When the author's name appears in the sentence, the bracketed number still appears at the end: "Karlsson [1] describes…" The number is the only in-text identifier of the source.

Multiple sources in one citation

For multiple sources in a single in-text citation, list the numbers in brackets separated by commas: [1], [3], [5]. For three or more consecutive numbers, use a hyphen: [1]–[3]. The order matches the order of first appearance in the reference list.

Specific section or quotation

For a specific section, paragraph, or moment in a long source, the navigational reference can follow the bracketed number: [1, sec. 4] or [1, para. 12]. Page numbers, when applicable: [1, p. 47].

References

Works Cited
  1. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, <em>IEEE Editorial Style Manual for Authors</em>. New York, NY, USA: IEEE, 2022.
  2. IEEE, "IEEE Citation
  3. eference," IEEE Author Center. [Online]. Available: https://ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/IEEE-
  4. eference-Guide.pdf. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2024].
  5. Murdoch University Library, "IEEE referencing," Murdoch University. [Online]. Available: https://libguides.murdoch.edu.au/IEEE. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2024].

Save & organize with Reference Library

Store, organize, and reuse your citations anytime with your personal reference library.

Go to Reference Library →

Create a full bibliography

Generate a complete IEEE bibliography from all your saved references in seconds.

Create bibliography →

Manage citations directly inside WordPress

Stop managing citations manually. Manage every source in one place - reusable, searchable, editable, and automatically formatted across your WordPress site.

Install CiteKit Free