Template:Cite web

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This template is used to cite online sources in Wikipedia articles. {{Cite news}} can also be used when citing a news source; for general information about citations in Wikipedia articles, see Wikipedia:Cite sources. A general discussion of the use of templates for adding citations to Wikipedia articles is available at Wikipedia:Citation templates.

Usage

Common forms with authors in any format

Citations within a page should use consistent formats. However, there is no consensus about which format is best. The following examples are for citations where one or more authors are listed in a single |author=authors parameter, using any format. Also shown below are two separate date formats that are commonly used in Wikipedia:

Day Month Year

{{cite web |url= |title= |author= |date= |work= |publisher= |accessdate=19 December 2025}}

Month Day, Year

{{cite web |url= |title= |author= |date= |work= |publisher= |accessdate=December 19, 2025}}

Common forms with last1, first1; last2, first2

The examples hereafter will suffice for up to two authors each with first and last names; for more, just create more parameters in a similar style:

Day Month Year

{{cite web |url= |title= |last1= |first1= |last2= |first2= |date= |work= |publisher= |accessdate=19 December 2025}}

Month Day, Year

{{cite web |url= |title= |last1= |first1= |last2= |first2= |date= |work= |publisher= |accessdate=December 19, 2025}}

All parameters

When copying all parameters in either the vertical or horizontal layouts, delete those which are not needed. None of the parameters should be capitalised, or the template will not work as intended. For example, use "url", "title", etc. - not "URL", "Title", etc.

All parameters, horizontal layout

{{cite web |url= |title= |first= |last= |author= |authorlink= |coauthors= |date= |month= |year= |work= |publisher= |location= |page= |pages= |at= |language= |trans_title= |format= |arxiv= |asin= |bibcode= |doi= |doibroken= |isbn= |issn= |jfm= |jstor= |lccn= |mr= |oclc= |ol= |osti= |pmc = |pmid= |rfc= |ssrn= |zbl= |id= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |deadurl= |accessdate= |quote= |ref= |separator= |postscript=}}

All parameters, vertical layout

All parameters, vertical layout	Common parameters, vertical layout, multiple authors	Common parameters, vertical layout, single author
{{cite web | url = | title = | first = | last = | author = | authorlink = | coauthors = | date = | month = | year = | work = | publisher = | location = | page = | pages = | at = | language = | trans_title = | format = | arxiv = | asin = | bibcode = | doi = | doibroken = | isbn = | issn = | jfm = | jstor = | lccn = | mr = | oclc = | ol = | osti = | pmc = | pmid = | rfc = | ssrn = | zbl = | id = | archiveurl = | archivedate = | deadurl = | accessdate = | quote = | ref = | separator = | postscript = }}	{{cite web | url = | title = | last1 = | first1 = | last2 = | first2 = | date = | work = | publisher = | accessdate = }}	{{cite web | url = | title = | author = | date = | work = | publisher = | accessdate = }}

Examples

{{cite web |url = http://www.example.org/ |title = My Favorite Things, Part II |author = Doe, John |publisher = Open Publishing |date = 30 April 2005 |work = Encyclopedia of Things |accessdate= 6 July 2005 }}

• Doe, John (30 April 2005). "My Favorite Things, Part II". Encyclopedia of Things. Open Publishing. http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

{{cite web |url = http://www.example.org/ |title = My Favorite Things, Part II |author = Doe, John |date = 30 April 2005 |work = Encyclopedia of Things |accessdate = 6 July 2005 }}

• Doe, John (30 April 2005). "My Favorite Things, Part II". Encyclopedia of Things. http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

{{cite web |url=http://www.example.org/ |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |author=Doe, John |date=30 April 2005 |accessdate=6 July 2005 }}

• Doe, John (30 April 2005). "My Favorite Things, Part II". http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

{{cite web |url=http://www.example.org/ |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |author=Doe, John |accessdate=6 July 2005 }}

• Doe, John. "My Favorite Things, Part II". http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

{{cite web |url=http://www.example.org/ |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |accessdate=6 July 2005 }}

• "My Favorite Things, Part II". http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

{{cite web |url=http://www.nfl.com/rulebook/digestofrules |title=Digest of Rules |publisher=National Football League |accessdate=6 July 2005 }}

• "Digest of Rules". National Football League. http://www.nfl.com/rulebook/digestofrules. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

Using format

{{cite web |url=http://www.incb.org/pdf/e/list/green.pdf |title=List of psychotropic substances under international control |publisher=International Narcotics Control Board |format=PDF |accessdate=6 July 2005 }}

• "List of psychotropic substances under international control" (PDF). International Narcotics Control Board. http://www.incb.org/pdf/e/list/green.pdf. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

Foreign language and translated title

{{cite web |url=http://www.example.org/ |title=Honni soit qui mal y pense |author=Joliet, François |date=30 April 2005 |accessdate=6 July 2005 |language=French |trans_title=Shame on those who think evil }}

• Joliet, François (30 April 2005). "Honni soit qui mal y pense [Shamed be he who thinks evil of it]" (in French). http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

Using authorlink

{{cite web |url=http://www.example.org/ |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |author=Doe, John |authorlink=John Doe |publisher=Open Publishing |date=30 April 2005 |work=Encyclopedia of Things |accessdate=6 July 2005 }}

• Doe, John (30 April 2005). "My Favorite Things, Part II". Encyclopedia of Things. Open Publishing. http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

Using coauthors

{{cite web |url=http://www.example.org/ |title=Our Favorite Things |first=John |last=Doe |coauthors=Smith, Peter; Smythe, Jim |publisher=Open Publishing |date=30 April 2005 |work=Encyclopedia of Things |accessdate=16 May 2006 }}

• Doe, John; Smith, Peter; Smythe, Jim (30 April 2005). "Our Favorite Things". Encyclopedia of Things. Open Publishing. http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 16 May 2006. 

{{cite web |url=http://www.example.org/ |title=Our Favorite Things |first=John |last=Doe |coauthors=Peter Smith; Jim Smythe |publisher=Open Publishing |date=30 April 2005 |work=Encyclopedia of Things |accessdate=16 May 2006 }}

• Doe, John; Peter Smith; Jim Smythe (30 April 2005). "Our Favorite Things". Encyclopedia of Things. Open Publishing. http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 16 May 2006. 

No author

{{cite web |url=http://www.example.org/ |title=Index of Sharp Things |publisher=Open Publishing |date=30 April 2005 |work=Encyclopedia of Things |accessdate=16 May 2006 }}

• "Index of Sharp Things". Encyclopedia of Things. Open Publishing. 30 April 2005. http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 16 May 2006. 

No author, no publisher

This abbreviated format should only be used when the editor cannot determine the publisher and author.

{{cite web |url=http://www.example.org/ |title=Index of Sharp Things |date=30 April 2005 |work=Encyclopedia of Things |accessdate=6 July 2005}}

• "Index of Sharp Things". Encyclopedia of Things. 30 April 2005. http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

{{cite web |url=http://www.example.org/ |title=Index of Sharp Things |date=30 April 2005 |accessdate=6 July 2005}}

• "Index of Sharp Things". 30 April 2005. http://www.example.org/. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

{{cite web |url=http://www.incb.org/pdf/e/list/green.pdf |title=List of psychotropic substances under international control |date=30 April 2005 |format=PDF |accessdate=6 July 2005 |language=Greek }}

• "List of psychotropic substances under international control" (in Greek) (PDF). 30 April 2005. http://www.incb.org/pdf/e/list/green.pdf. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

Using "archiveurl" and "archivedate" (and optionally "deadurl") for webpages that have been archived

{{cite web |url=http://www.incb.org/pdf/e/list/green.pdf |title=List of psychotropic substances under international control |date=30 April 2005 |format=PDF |accessdate=6 July 2005 |archiveurl=http://www.archive.org/2005-09-11/www.incb.org/pdf/e/list/green.pdf |archivedate=11 September 2005 }}

• "List of psychotropic substances under international control" (PDF). 30 April 2005. Archived from the original on 11 September 2005. http://www.archive.org/2005-09-11/www.incb.org/pdf/e/list/green.pdf. Retrieved 6 July 2005. 

{{cite web |url=http://joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi?archive=currnews&story=20060405-01shore.htm |title=Interview with Maggie Downs |date=31 March 2006 |publisher=The Desert Sun |archiveurl=http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:JAxf4v-pQmgJ:joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi%3Farchive%3Dcurrnews%26story%3D20060405-01shore.htm |archivedate=26 April 2006 |deadurl=no }}

• "Interview with Maggie Downs". The Desert Sun. 31 March 2006. Archived from the original on 26 April 2006. http://joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi?archive=currnews&story=20060405-01shore.htm. 

{{Cite web |url=http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/03772.html |title=London, United Kingdom Forecast : Weather Underground (weather and elevation at Heathrow Airport) |publisher=The Weather Underground, Inc. |accessdate=6 June 2008 |ref=harv | archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/5yo0HaAk7 |archivedate=19 May 2011| deadurl=no }}

• "London, United Kingdom Forecast : Weather Underground (weather and elevation at Heathrow Airport)". The Weather Underground, Inc.. Archived from the original on 19 May 2011. http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/03772.html. Retrieved 6 June 2008. 

Using "quote"

{{cite web |url=http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/c.html |title=Daylight saving time: rationale and original idea |work=WebExhibits |year=2008 |accessdate=27 September 2009 |quote=... Lord Balfour came forward with a unique concern: 'Supposing some unfortunate lady was confined with twins ...' }}

• "Daylight saving time: rationale and original idea". WebExhibits. 2008. http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/c.html. Retrieved 27 September 2009. "... Lord Balfour came forward with a unique concern: 'Supposing some unfortunate lady was confined with twins ...'" 

Parameters

Syntax

Nested parameters rely on their parent parameters:

• parent
• OR: parent2—may be used instead of parent
  • child—may be used with parent (and is ignored if parent is not used)
  • OR: child2—may be used instead of child (and is ignored if parent2 is not used)

Where aliases are listed, only one of the parameters may be defined; if multiple aliased parameters are defined, then only one will show.

This template embeds COinS metadata in the HTML output, allowing reference management software to retrieve bibliographic metadata. See Wikipedia:COinS. As a general rule, only one data item per parameter. Do not include explanatory or alternate text:

• use |date=27 September 2007 not |date=27 September 2007 (print version 25 September)

Use of templates within the citation template is discouraged because many of these templates will add extraneous HTML or CSS that will be included raw in the metadata. Also, HTML entities, for example  , –, or  , should not be used in parameters that contribute to the metadata.

COinS metadata is created for these parameters

Note: This table of metadata is displayed in the documentation of all Citation Style 1 templates. Not all of these parameters are supported by every CS1 template. Some of these parameters are mutually exclusive, some are aliases of another parameter, and some require other parameters to be present. A full list of this template's supported parameters, their aliases, and their dependencies is shown in the Usage section near the top of this documentation page.

• |periodical=, |journal=, |newspaper=, |magazine=, |work=, |website=, |encyclopedia=, |encyclopaedia=, |dictionary=
• |chapter=, |script-chapter=, |contribution=, |script-contribution=, |entry=, |script-entry=, |article=, |script-article=, |section=, |script-section=
• |title=, |script-title=, |book-title=
• |publication-place=, |place=, |location=
• |date=, |year=, |publication-date=
• |series=, |version=
• |volume=, |issue=, |number=
• |page=, |pages=, |at=, |quote-page=, |quote-pages=
• |edition=
• |publisher=, |institution=
• |url=, |chapter-url=, |contribution-url=, |section-url=
• |author-last=, |author-last#=, |author#-last=, |author-surname=, |author-surname#=, |author#-surname=, |last=, |last#=, |surname=, |surname#=, |author=, |author#=, |subject=, |subject#=, |host=, |host#=
• |author-first=, |author-first#=, |author#-first=, |author-given=, |author-given#=, |author#-given=, |first=, |first#=, |given=, |given#=
• |degree=
• |arxiv=, |bibcode=, |biorxiv=, |citeseerx=, |doi=, |eissn=, |eprint=, |hdl=, |isbn=, |issn=, |jfm=, |jstor=, |lccn=, |message-id=, |mr=, |oclc=, |osti=, |pmc=, |pmid=, |rfc=, |ssrn=, |s2cid=, |zbl=

By default, sets of fields are terminated with a period (.).

Description

Authors

• last: Surname of a single author. Do not wikilink—use author-link instead. For corporate authors or authors for whom only one name is listed by the source, use last or one of its aliases (e.g. |author=Bono). Aliases: surname, author, last1, surname1, author1.
  • author: this parameter is used to hold the name of an organizational author (e.g. a committee) or the complete name (first and last) of a single person; for the latter, prefer the use of |first= and |last=. This parameter should never hold the names of more than one author. Supports accept-this-as-written markup. Do not use italics in this field, as doing so produces corrupt metadata.
  • first: Given or first names of author; for example: Firstname Middlename or Firstname M. or Firstname M. Sr. Do not wikilink—use author-link instead. Aliases: given, first1, given1. Requires last; first name will not display if last is empty. Use generational and regnal suffixes only in accordance with MOS:JRSR and use honorifics only in accordance with MOS:HON.
  • OR: for multiple authors, use last1, first1 through lastn, firstn, where n is any consecutive number for an unlimited number of authors (each firstn requires a corresponding lastn, but not the other way around). See the display parameters to change how many authors are displayed. Aliases: surname1, given1 through surnamen, givenn, or author1 through authorn. For an individual author plus an institutional author, you can use |first1=...|last1=...|author2=....
  • author-link: Title of existing Wikipedia article about the author—not the author's website; do not wikilink. Aliases: author-link1, author1-link, authorlink.
  • OR: for multiple authors, use author-link1 through author-linkn. Aliases: author1-link through authorn-link.
  • name-list-style: accepts a limited list of keywords as value; when set to amp, ampersand, or &, inserts an ampersand between the last two names in a name list; when set to and, inserts the conjunction 'and' between the last two names of a name list; when set to vancdisplays name lists in Vancouver style when the lists use the last/first forms of name parameters.
• vauthors: comma-separated list of author names in Vancouver style; enclose corporate or institutional author names in doubled parentheses. End with etal if appropriate:

  |vauthors=Smythe JB, ((Megabux Corp.)), etal

  • author-link and author-mask may be used for the individual names in |vauthors= as described above
• authors: deprecated Free-form list of author names; use of this parameter is discouraged because it does not contribute to a citation's metadata; not an alias of last.
• translator-last: Surname of translator. Do not wikilink—use translator-link instead. Aliases: translator-surname, translator1, translator1-last, translator-last1. Supports accept-this-as-written markup.
  • translator-first: Given or first names of translator. Do not wikilink—use translator-link instead. Aliases: translator-given, translator1-first, translator-first1.
  • OR: for multiple translators, use translator-last1, translator-first1 through translator-lastn, translator-firstn, where n is any consecutive number for an unlimited number of translators (each translator-firstn requires a corresponding translator-lastn, but not the other way around). Aliases: translator1-last, translator1-first through translatorn-last, translatorn-first, or translator1 through translatorn.
  • translator-link: Title of existing Wikipedia article about the translator—not the translator's website; do not wikilink. Aliases: translator-link1, translator1-link.
  • OR: for multiple translators, use translator-link1 through translator-linkn. Aliases: translator1-link through translatorn-link.
• collaboration: Name of a group of authors or collaborators; requires author, last, or vauthors listing one or more primary authors; follows author name-list; appends "et al." to author name-list.

• Note: When using shortened footnotes or parenthetical referencing styles with templates, do not use multiple names in one field, or else the anchor will not match the inline link.

Title

1. REDIRECT Template:Citation Style documentation/work2

This parameter is required and will generate an error if not defined. On errors, main, help and template pages are placed into Category:Articles with incorrect citation syntax. Set |no-tracking=true to disable categorization; mainly used for documentation where the error is demonstrated.

• type: Provides additional information about the media type of the source. May alternatively be used to identify the type of manuscript linked to in the title, if this is not the final version of a manuscript (e.g. if a preprint of a manuscript is freely available, but the version of record is behind a paywall). Format in sentence case. Displays in parentheses following the title. The reserved keyword none can be used to disable the display of a type. Examples: Thesis, Booklet, Accepted manuscript, CD liner, Press release. Alias: medium.

• : The language (or a comma-separated list of the languages) in which the source is written, as either the ISO 639 language code (preferred) or the full language name. Examples: |language=ru; |lang=fr, pt-br; |lang=Russian; |language=French, Portuguese. See the list of supported codes and names. Do not use templates or wikilinks. Displays in parentheses with "in" before the language name or names. When the only source language is English, no language is displayed in the citation. The use of languages recognized by the citation module adds the page to the appropriate subcategory of Category:CS1 foreign language sources. Because cs1|2 templates are often copied from en.wiki to other wikis, the use of language codes is preferred so that language names render in the correct language and form, e.g. español at a French-language wiki instead of the English word "Spanish". Aliases:

Date

"Wikipedia:Undated" redirects here. For undated signatures, see Template:Undated.

• date: Date of referenced source. Can be full date (day, month, and year) or partial date (month and year, season and year, or year). Use same format as other publication dates in the citations. Do not wikilink. Displays after the authors and is enclosed in parentheses. If there is no author, then displays after the website and publisher. For acceptable date formats, see Help:Citation Style 1 § Dates.

Shortened footnotes target full citations using the year specified in this parameter. A lowercase letter may be suffixed to the year to disambiguate {{sfn}} links to multiple works by the same author in the same year,^[more] unless the date is formatted as YYYY-MM-DD. In the latter case, year or ref is required to disambiguate the link targets.

For approximate year, precede with "c. ", like this: |date=c. 1900.

For no date, or "undated", use |date=n.d.

The date of a Web page, PDF, etc. with no visible date can sometimes be established by searching the page source or document code for a created or updated date; a comment for editors such as date=2021-12-25<!--date from page source-->|orig-date=Original date 2011-01-01 can be added.

Automatic date formatting: Citation Style 1 and 2 templates, including this template, automatically render dates in all date parameters (such as |date=, |publication-date=, |access-date=, |archive-date=, etc.) except for |orig-date= in the style specified by the article's {{use dmy dates}} or {{use mdy dates}} template. See those templates' documentation for details.

• year: Year of publication. The more flexible |date= parameter also handles a year by itself. Do not use in combination with the |date= parameter, unless both of the following conditions are met:
  1. Shortened footnotes target multiple citations with same last name and year of publication. (This situation necessitates a CITEREF disambiguator, usually a lowercase letter suffixed to the year.)
  2. The |date= format is YYYY-MM-DD. (This format prevents the addition of a disambiguating letter to the year.)
• orig-date: Original publication date or year; displays in square brackets after the date (or year). For clarity, please supply specifics. For example: |orig-date=First published 1859 or |orig-date=Composed 1904. As |orig-date= does not support automatic date formatting, use the same date format as defined by |df= (or, if it exists in the article, by |cs1-dates= of a {{use dmy dates}} or {{use mdy dates}} template), or as used in the |date= parameter. Alias: orig-year
• df: date format; sets rendered dates to the specified format; does not support date ranges or seasonal dates; overrides the automatic date formatting described above. Accepts one value which may be one of these:

  dmy – set publication dates to day month year format; access- and archive-dates are not modified;

  mdy – as above for month day, year format

  ymd – as above for year initial numeric format YYYY-MM-DD

  dmy-all – set publication, access-, and archive-dates to day month year format;

  mdy-all – as above for month day, year format

  ymd-all – as above for year initial numeric format YYYY-MM-DD

Publisher

• publisher: Name of publisher; may be wikilinked if relevant. The publisher is the company, organization or other legal entity that publishes the work being cited. For self-published works (i.e., where the publisher is the same as the author or creator) state |publisher=self-published. Do not use the publisher parameter for the name of a work (e.g. a website, book, encyclopedia, newspaper, magazine, journal, etc.). If the name of the publisher changed over time, use the name as stated in the publication or used at the time of the source's publication. Corporate designations such as "Ltd", "Inc.", or "GmbH" are not usually included. Not normally used for periodicals. Omit where the publisher's name is substantially the same as the name of the work (for example, The New York Times Co. publishes The New York Times newspaper, so there is no reason to name the publisher). Displays after title.
• place: For news stories with a dateline, the location where the story was written. If the name of the location changed over time, use the name as stated in the publication or used at the time of the source's publication. In earlier versions of the template this was the publication place, and for compatibility, will be treated as the publication place if the publication-place parameter is absent; see that parameter for further information. Alias: location
• publication-place: Geographical place of publication; generally not wikilinked; omit when the name of the work includes the publication place, for example, The Boston Globe, The Times of India. Displays after the title. If the name of the publication place changed over time, use the name as stated in the publication or used at the time of the source's publication. If only one of publication-place, place, or location is defined, it will be treated as the publication place and will show after the title; if publication-place and place or location are defined, then place or location is shown before the title prefixed with "written at" and publication-place is shown after the title.
• publication-date: Date of publication when different from the date the work was written. If date (or year) is also defined and is different, then publication-date displays preceded by "published" and enclosed in parentheses, following publisher. If date (or year) is not defined, publication-date is displayed as date. Use the same format as other dates in the article; do not wikilink.
• via: Name of the content deliverer (if different from publisher). via is not a replacement for publisher, but provides additional detail. It may be used when the content deliverer (e.g. NewsBank) presents the source in a format different from the original, when the URL provided does not make clear the identity of the deliverer, where no URL or DOI is available (EBSCO), or if the deliverer requests attribution. See the access level parameters to display access restrictions.

Series

• series or version: When the source is part of a series, such as a book series or a journal, where the issue numbering has restarted.

In-source locations

• page: The number of a single page in the source that supports the content. Use either |page= or |pages=, but not both. Displays preceded by p. unless |no-pp=yes. If hyphenated, use {{hyphen}} to indicate this is intentional (e.g. |page=3{{hyphen}}12), otherwise several editors and semi-automated tools will assume this was a misuse of the parameter to indicate a page range and will convert |page=3-12 to |pages=3{{ndash}}12. Alias: p.
• OR: pages: A range of pages in the source that supports the content. Use either |page= or |pages=, but not both. Separate using an en dash (–); separate non-sequential pages with a comma (,); do not use to indicate the total number of pages in the source. Displays preceded by pp. unless |no-pp=yes.
  Hyphens are automatically converted to en dashes; if hyphens are appropriate because individual page numbers contain hyphens, for example: pp. 3-1–3-15, use double parentheses to tell the template to display the value of |pages= without processing it, and use {{hyphen}} to indicate to editors that a hyphen is really intended: |pages=((3{{hyphen}}1{{ndash}}3{{hyphen}}15)). Alternatively, use |at=, like this: |at=pp. 3-1–3-15. Alias: pp.
  • no-pp: Set to yes, y, or true to suppress the p. or pp. notations where this is inappropriate; for example, where |page=Front cover or |pages=passim.
• OR: at: For sources where a page number is inappropriate or insufficient. Overridden by |page= or |pages=. Use only one of |page=, |pages=, or |at=.
  Examples: page (p.) or pages (pp.); section (sec.), column (col.), paragraph (para.); track; hours, minutes and seconds; act, scene, canto, book, part, folio, stanza, back cover, liner notes, indicia, colophon, dust jacket, verse.
• For |quote-page= and |quote-pages= used in conjunction with |quote=, see here.

URL

• url: URL of an online location where the text of the publication named by title can be found. Cannot be used if title is wikilinked. If applicable, the link may point to the specific page(s) referenced. Remove tracking parameters from URLs, e.g. #ixzz2rBr3aO94 or ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=...&utm_term=...&utm_campaign=.... For linking to pages in PDF files or in Google Books, see WP:PAGELINKS. Do not link to any commercial booksellers, such as Amazon; use |isbn= or |oclc= to provide neutral search links for books. Invalid URLs, including those containing spaces, will result in an error message.
  • access-date: Full date when the content pointed to by url was last verified to support the text in the article; do not wikilink; requires url; use the same format as other access and archive dates in the citations. Not required for linked documents that do not change. For example, access-date is required for online sources, such as personal websites, that do not have a publication date; see WP:CITEWEB. Access dates are not required for links to published research papers or published books. Note that access-date is the date that the URL was found to be working and to support the text being cited. See "Automatic date formatting" above for details about interaction with {{use dmy dates}} and {{use mdy dates}}. Can be hidden or styled by registered editors. Alias: accessdate.
  • archive-url: The URL of an archived snapshot of a web page. Typically used to refer to services such as Internet Archive (see Wikipedia:Using the Wayback Machine) and archive.today (see Help:Using archive.today); requires archive-date and url. By default (overridden by |url-status=live) the archived link is displayed first, with the original link at the end. Alias: archiveurl.
    • archive-date: Archive-service snapshot-date; preceded in display by default text "archived from the original on". Use the same format as other access and archive dates in the citations. This does not necessarily have to be the same format that was used for citing publication dates. Do not wikilink; templated dates are discouraged. See "Automatic date formatting" above for details about interaction with {{use dmy dates}} and {{use mdy dates}}. Alias: archivedate.
    • url-status: A control parameter to select one of |url= or |archive-url= to link |title=; requires url and archive-url. Use {{dead link}} to mark dead |url= when there is no |archive-url=.

      Accepts multiple keywords:

      • dead – (default condition when |url-status= omitted or empty) selects |archive-url=
      • live – selects |url=; used when |url= is preemptively archived with |archive-url=
      • deviated – selects |archive-url=; used when |url= is still 'live' but no-longer supports the text in a Wikipedia article
      • unfit – selects |archive-url=; used when |url= links to vice (gambling, pornography), advertising, or other unsuitable page; links to |url= are suppressed in the rendering. If an entire domain is unsuitable, consider instead usurpation or blacklist. Bot help is available at WP:URLREQ
      • usurped – selects |archive-url=; used when the domain in |url= no longer serves its original intent, particularly when the domain has been (mis)appropriated by other entities, such as vice, reseller and advertising sites; links to |url= are suppressed in the rendering. Bot help is available at WP:URLREQ
      • bot: unknown – Editors may encounter this value which is left behind by a bot that has visited the reference and wasn't able to determine the status of the url. The page will be automatically placed in Category:CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown when this value is present, and per the instructions in that category, editors manually evaluate the state of the URL and change the parameter value appropriately.

    • archive-format: File format of the work referred to by archive-url; for example: DOC or XLS; displayed in parentheses after the archive link. HTML is implied and should not be specified. PDF is auto-detected and should not be specified. Does not change the external link icon (except for PDF). Note: External link icons do not include alt text; thus, they do not add file format information for the visually impaired. (This is not a concern with PDF, because the auto-detection will add "(PDF)" as descriptive text.) See Using |format=
  • url-access: See Access indicators for url-holding parameters
• format: File format of the work referred to by url; for example: DOC or XLS; displayed in parentheses after title. (For media format, use type.) HTML is implied and should not be specified. PDF is auto-detected and should not be specified. Does not change the external link icon (except for PDF). Note: External link icons do not include alt text; thus, they do not add file format information for the visually impaired. (This is not a concern with PDF, because the auto-detection will add "(PDF)" as descriptive text.) See Using |format=

URLs must begin with a supported URI scheme. http:// and https:// will be supported by all browsers; however, ftp://, gopher://, irc://, ircs://, mailto: and news: may require a plug-in or an external application and should normally be avoided. IPv6 host-names are currently not supported.

If URLs in citation template parameters contain certain characters, then they will not display and link correctly. Those characters need to be percent-encoded. For example, a space must be replaced by %20. To encode the URL, replace the following characters with:

Character	space	"	'	<	>	[	]	{	|	}
Encoding	%20	%22	%27	%3C	%3E	%5B	%5D	%7B	%7C	%7D

Single apostrophes do not need to be encoded; however, unencoded multiples will be parsed as italic or bold markup. Single curly closing braces also do not need to be encoded; however, an unencoded pair will be parsed as the double closing braces for the template transclusion.

Anchor

• : the citation's HTML anchor identifier, when different from its default. When set, |ref=ID generates an anchor with the given ID (the id= attribute in the citation's <cite id="ID"> HTML tag). Setting |ref=ID identifies the template as a target and allows wikilinking to full references, especially useful with short-form citations like shortened notes and parenthetical referencing. The default anchor ID is suitable for use with {{sfn}} and {{harv}} templates. Since April 2020, the parameter / keyword pair |ref=harv has no special meaning; this deprecated setting should not be used and may be removed from existing cs1|2 templates. To inhibit anchor ID creation, set |ref=none. Aliases: . See Template:Citation/doc § Anchors for Harvard referencing templates.

Identifiers

• id: A unique identifier, used where none of the specialized identifiers are applicable; wikilink or use an external link template as applicable. For example, |id=NCJ 122967 will append "NCJ 122967" at the end of the citation. You can use templates such as |id={{NCJ|122967}} to append NCJ 122967 instead.

The following identifiers create links and are designed to accept a single value. Using multiple values or other text will break the link and/or invalidate the identifier. In general, the parameters should include only the variable part of the identifier, e.g. |rfc=822 or |pmc=345678.

• : arXiv identifier; for example: |arxiv=hep-th/9205027 (before April 2007) or |arxiv=0706.0001 (April 2007 – December 2014) or |arxiv=1501.00001 (since January 2015). Do not include extraneous file extensions like ".pdf" or ".html". Aliases: .
• : Amazon Standard Identification Number; if first character of value is a digit, use . Because this link favours one specific distributor, include it only if standard identifiers are not available. Example |asin=B00005N5PF. Aliases: .
  • : ASIN top-level domain for Amazon sites other than the US; valid values: ae, au, br, ca, cn, de, es, fr, in, it, jp, mx, nl, pl, sa, se, sg, tr, uk. Aliases: .
• : bibcode; used by a number of astronomical data systems; for example: 1974AJ.....79..819H. Aliases: .
• : bioRxiv id, as in the entire DOI (e.g. 10.1101/078733 for http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/01/078733 or https://doi.org/10.1101/078733; 10.1101/2020.07.24.220400 for https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.24.220400). Aliases: .
• : CiteSeerX id, a string of digits and dots found in a CiteSeerX URL (e.g. 10.1.1.176.341 for https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.176.341). Aliases: .
• : Digital object identifier; for example: 10.1038/news070508-7. It is checked to ensure it begins with (10.). Aliases: .
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid DOIs using a non-standard format, see below.
  • : Date a valid DOI was found to be non-working/inactive at https://doi.org. Use the same format as other dates in the article. Aliases: .
• : International Standard Serial Number for the electronic media of a serial publication; eight characters may be split into two groups of four using a hyphen, but not an en dash or a space; example |eissn=1557-2986. Aliases: .
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid eISSNs using a non-standard format, see below.
• : Handle System identifier for digital objects and other resources on the Internet; example |hdl=20.1000/100. Aliases: .
• : International Standard Book Number; for example: 978-0-8126-9593-9. (See Wikipedia:ISBN and ISBN § Overview.) Hyphens in the ISBN are optional, but preferred. Use the ISBN actually printed on or in the book. Use the 13-digit ISBN – beginning with 978 or 979 – when it is available. If only a 10-digit ISBN is printed on or in the book, use it. ISBNs can be found on the page with the publisher's information – usually the back of the title page – or beneath the barcode as a number beginning with 978 or 979 (barcodes beginning with any other numbers are not ISBNs). For sources with the older 9-digit SBN system, use . Do not convert a 10-digit ISBN to 13-digit by just adding the 978 prefix; the last digit is a calculated check digit and just making changes to the numbers will make the ISBN invalid. This parameter should hold only the ISBN without any additional characters. It is checked for length, invalid characters – anything other than numbers, spaces, and hyphens, with "X" permitted as the last character in a 10-digit ISBN – and the proper check digit. Aliases: .
  • Use the {{Format ISBN}} template within the parameter – in the form |isbn={{Format ISBN|9780812695939}} – if you are unsure of how any particular ISBN should be hyphenated, as the pattern varies by country and publisher.
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid ISBNs using a non-standard format, see below.
• : International Standard Music Number; for example: 979-0-9016791-7-7. Hyphens or spaces in the ISMN are optional. Use the ISMN actually printed on or in the work. This parameter should hold only the ISMN without any additional characters. It is checked for length, invalid characters – anything other than numbers, spaces, and hyphens – and the proper check digit. Aliases: .
• : International Standard Serial Number; eight characters may be split into two groups of four using a hyphen, but not an en dash or a space; example |issn=2049-3630. Aliases: .
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid ISSNs using a non-standard format, see below.
• : Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik; do not include "JFM" in the value; example |jfm=53.0144.01. Aliases: .
• : JSTOR reference number; for example: |jstor=3793107. Aliases: .
• : Library of Congress Control Number. When present, alphabetic prefix characters are to be lower case and without a space; example |lccn=79-57364 or |lccn=2004042477 or |lccn=e09001178. Aliases: .
• : Mathematical Reviews; example |mr=630583. Aliases: .
• : OCLC Number for looking up publications in the WorldCat union catalog; example |oclc=9355469. Aliases: .
• : Open Library identifier; do not include "OL" in the value; example |ol=7030731M. Aliases: .
• : Office of Scientific and Technical Information; example |osti=4367507. Aliases: .
• : PubMed Central; use article number for open repository full-text of a journal article, e.g. |pmc=345678. Do not include "PMC" in the value. See also the parameter, below; these are two different identifiers. Aliases: .
  • : Date that goes live; if this date is in the future, then is not linked until that date. Aliases: .
• : PubMed; use unique identifier; example |pmid=17322060 See also the parameter, above; these are two different identifiers. Aliases: .
• : Request for Comments; example |rfc=3143. Aliases: .
• : Standard Book Number; example |sbn=356-02201-3. Aliases: .
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid SBNs using a non-standard format, see below.
• : Social Science Research Network; example |ssrn=1900856. Aliases: .
• : Semantic Scholar corpus ID; example |s2cid=37220927. Aliases: .
• : Zentralblatt MATH; example |zbl=0472.53010 For zbMATH search results like JFM 35.0387.02 use |jfm=35.0387.02. Aliases: .

In very rare cases, identifiers are published which do not follow their defined standard format or use non-conforming checksums. These would typically cause an error message to be shown. Do not alter them to match a different checksum. In order to suppress the error message, some identifiers (|doi=, |eissn=, |isbn=, |issn=, and |sbn=) support a special accept-this-as-written markup which can be applied to disable the error-checking (as |<param>=((<value>))). If the problem is down to a mere typographical error in a third-party source, correct the identifier value instead of overriding the error message.

For some identifiers, it is possible to specify the access status using the corresponding |<param>-access= parameter.

For {{cite journal}}, some identifiers (specifying free resources) will automatically be linked to the title when |url= and |title-link= are not used to specify a different link target. This behaviour can be overridden by one out of a number of special keywords for |title-link= to manually select a specific source (|title-link=pmc or |title-link=doi) for auto-linking or to disable the feature (|title-link=none).

It is not necessary to specify a URL to a link identical to a link also produced by an identifier. The |url= parameter (or |title-link=) can then be used for providing a direct deep link to the corresponding document or a convenience link to a resource that would not otherwise be obviously accessible.

Quote

• quote: Relevant text quoted from the source. Displays enclosed in quotes. When supplied, the citation terminator (a period by default) is suppressed, so the quote must include terminating punctuation. If script-quote is defined, use quote to hold a Romanization (if available) of the text in script-quote.
  • script-quote: Original quotation for languages that do not use a Latin-based script (Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, etc.); not italicized, follows italicized Romanization defined in quote (if available). Alias: none. Must be prefixed with one of the supported language codes to help browsers properly display the script:

    ... |quote=Tōkyō tawā |script-quote=ja:東京タワー |trans-quote=Tokyo Tower ...

  • trans-quote: English translation of the quotation if the source quoted is in a foreign language. Displays in square brackets. Alias: none.
• quote-page: The number of a single page quoted in |quote=. Use either |quote-page= or |quote-pages=, but not both. Should be a subset of the page(s) specified in |page=, |pages= or |at=. Displays preceded by p. unless |no-pp=yes. If hyphenated, use {{hyphen}} to indicate this is intentional (e.g. |quote-page=3{{hyphen}}12). Alias: none.
• OR: quote-pages: A list or range of pages quoted in |quote=. Use either |quote-page= or |quote-pages=, but not both. Should be a subset of the pages specified in |pages= or |at=. Separate using an en dash (–); separate non-sequential pages with a comma (,). Displays preceded by pp. unless |no-pp=yes is defined. Hyphens are automatically converted to en dashes; if hyphens are appropriate because individual page numbers contain hyphens, for example: pp. 3-1–3-15, use double parentheses to tell the template to display the value of |quote-pages= without processing it, and use {{hyphen}} to indicate to editors that a hyphen is really intended: |quote-pages=((3{{hyphen}}1{{ndash}}3{{hyphen}}15)). Alias: none.

Editors

• editor-last: surname of editor. Do not wikilink—use editor-link instead. Where the surname is usually written first—as in Chinese—or for corporate authors, simply use editor-last to include the same format as the source. Aliases: editor-last1, editor1-last, editor-surname, editor-surname1, editor1-surname, editor, editor1.
  • editor: This parameter is used to hold the complete name of a single editor (first and last), or the name of an editorial committee. This parameter should never hold the names of more than one editor. Supports accept-this-as-written markup.
  • editor-first: given or first names of editor, including title(s); example: Firstname Middlename or Firstname M. or Dr. Firstname M., Sr. Do not wikilink—use editor-link instead. Aliases: editor-first1, editor1-first, editor-given, editor-given1, editor1-given.
  • OR: for multiple editors, use editor-last1, editor-first1 through editor-lastn, editor-firstn (Aliases: editorn-last, editor-surnamen or editorn-surname; editorn-first, editor-givenn or editorn-given; editorn). For an individual editor plus an institutional editor, you can use |editor-first1=...|editor-last1=... |editor2=....
  • editor-link: title of existing Wikipedia article about the editor—not the editor's website; do not wikilink. Aliases: editor-link1.
  • OR: for multiple editors, use editor-link1 through editor-linkn (alias editorn-link).
  • name-list-style: accepts a limited list of keywords as value; when set to amp, ampersand, or &, inserts an ampersand between the last two names in a name list; when set to and, inserts the conjunction 'and' between the last two names of a name list; when set to vancdisplays name lists in Vancouver style when the lists use the last/first forms of name parameters.
• veditors: comma separated list of editor names in Vancouver style; enclose corporate or institutional names in doubled parentheses. End with etal if appropriate:

  |veditors=Smythe JB, ((Megabux Corp.)), etal

  • editor-linkn and editor-maskn may be used for the individual names in |veditors=, as described above
• Display:

  Use display-editors to control the length of the displayed editor name list and to specify when "et al." is included.

  If authors: Authors are first, followed by the included work, then "In" and the editors, then the main work.

  If no authors: Editors appear before the included work; a single editor is followed by "ed."; multiple editors are followed by "eds."

Laysummary

Display options

• mode: Sets element separator, default terminal punctuation, and certain capitalization according to the value provided. For |mode=cs1, element separator and terminal punctuation is a period (.); where appropriate, initial letters of certain words are capitalized ('Retrieved...'). For |mode=cs2, element separator is a comma (,); terminal punctuation is omitted; where appropriate, initial letters of certain words are not capitalized ('retrieved...'). These styles correspond to Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2 respectively. To override default terminal punctuation use postscript.
• author-mask:
• contributor-mask:
• editor-mask:
• interviewer-mask:
• subject-mask:
• translator-mask:

  Replaces the name of the (first) author with em dashes or text. Set <name>-mask to a numeric value n to set the dash n em spaces wide; set <name>-mask to a text value to display the text without a trailing author separator; for example, "with". The numeric value 0 is a special case to be used in conjunction with <name>-link—in this case, the value of <name>-link will be used as (linked) text. In either case, you must still include the values for all names for metadata purposes. Primarily intended for use with bibliographies or bibliography styles where multiple works by a single author are listed sequentially such as shortened footnotes. Do not use in a list generated by {{reflist}}, <references /> or similar as there is no control of the order in which references are displayed. Mask parameters can take an enumerator in the name of the parameter (e.g. |authorn-mask=) to apply the mask to a specific name.

• display-authors:
• display-contributors:
• display-editors:
• display-interviewers:
• display-subjects:
• display-translators:

  Controls the number of author (or other kind of contributor) names that are displayed. By default, all authors are displayed. To change the displayed number of names, set the parameter to the desired number. For example, |display-authors=2 will display only the first two authors in a citation (and not affect the display of the other kinds of contributors). |display-authors=0 is a special case suppressing the display of all authors including the et al. |display-authors=etal displays all authors in the list followed by et al. Aliases: none.

• postscript: Controls the closing punctuation for a citation; defaults to a period (.); for no terminating punctuation, specify |postscript=none – leaving |postscript= empty is the same as omitting it, but is ambiguous. Additional text, or templates that render more than a single terminating punctuation character, will generate a maintenance message. |postscript= is ignored if quote is defined.

This template produces COinS metadata; see COinS in Wikipedia for background information.

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Cite web/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.