Template:Cite web

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Citation Style 1 templates

{{Cite arXiv}}	arXiv preprints
{{Cite AV media}}	audio and visual media
{{Cite AV media notes}}	AV media liner notes
{{Cite bioRxiv}}	bioRxiv preprints
{{Cite book}}	books and chapters
{{Cite CiteSeerX}}	CiteSeerX papers
{{Cite conference}}	conference papers
{{cite document}}	short, stand-alone, offline documents
{{Cite encyclopedia}}	edited collections
{{Cite episode}}	radio or TV episodes
{{Cite interview}}	interviews
{{Cite journal}}	academic journals
{{Cite magazine}}	magazines, periodicals
{{Cite mailing list}}	public mailing lists
{{Cite map}}	maps
{{Cite medRxiv}}	medRxiv preprints
{{Cite news}}	news articles
{{Cite newsgroup}}	online newsgroups
{{Cite podcast}}	podcasts
{{Cite press release}}	press releases
{{Cite report}}	reports
{{Cite serial}}	audio or video serials
{{Cite sign}}	signs, plaques
{{Cite speech}}	speeches
{{Cite SSRN}}	SSRN papers
{{Cite tech report}}	technical reports
{{Cite thesis}}	theses
{{Cite web}}	web sources not covered by the above
See also	Specific-source templates Citation Style 1 wrapper templates

This Citation Style 1 template is used to create citations for web sources that are not characterized by another CS1 template. Do not use this template in the "External links" section of articles.

Usage

Copy a blank version to use. Almost all parameter names are supported only in lower case (some initialisms, such as |isbn= have upper-case aliases like |ISBN=, which are acceptable for use). Use the "|" (pipe) character between each parameter. Unused parameters may be deleted to avoid clutter in the edit window. Some samples on this documentation page may include the current date. If the date is not current, then the page.

Most commonly used parameters in horizontal format

For references with author credit <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline> {{cite web}}: Empty citation (help)</syntaxhighlight> For references without author credit <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline> {{cite web}}: Empty citation (help)</syntaxhighlight>

Most commonly used parameters in vertical format

{{cite web | url = | title = | last = | first = | date = | website = | publisher = | access-date = | quote = }}

Full parameter set in horizontal format

<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline> {{cite web}}: Empty citation (help)</syntaxhighlight>

Full parameter set in vertical format

Vertical list	Prerequisites	Brief instructions / notes
{{cite web | url = | url-access = | title = | last = | first = | author-link = | last2 = | first2 = | author-link2 = | date = | year = | orig-date = | editor-last = | editor-first = | editor-link = | editor2-last = | editor2-first= | editor2-link = | department = | website = | series = | publisher = | agency = | location = | page = | pages = | at = | language = | script-title = | trans-title = | type = | format = | arxiv = | asin = | bibcode = | doi = | doi-broken-date= | isbn = | issn = | jfm = | jstor = | lccn = | mr = | oclc = | ol = | osti = | pmc = | pmid = | rfc = | ssrn = | zbl = | id = | access-date = | url-status = | archive-url = | archive-date = | via = | quote = | ref = | postscript = }}	last   last last2       date or year   editor-last   editor-last editor2-last                                                                       url url, archive-url url, archive-date archive-url	required   required

• If a field name is listed in the Prerequisites column, it is a prerequisite for the field to the left.

Choosing between Template:cite web and Template:cite news

Before 2014, editors had to decide whether to use {{cite web}} or {{cite news}} based on their features. In 2014, most of the differences between the two templates were eliminated.

As of 29 July 2016, {{cite web}} and {{cite news}} have the following differences:

• {{cite news}} can be used for offline (paper) sources whereas {{cite web}} generates a missing URL error when no URL is provided
• {{cite news}} accepts |issue= and |volume= parameters while {{cite web}} does not (See Help:Citation Style 1 § Pages; see also {{cite magazine}}).

But given the same set of valid parameters, their output is exactly the same:

cite web:	Silverman, Dwight (July 15, 2011). "Microsoft envisions a universal OS, but it might not be called Windows". Houston Chronicle. Hearst Corporation. Retrieved May 26, 2015.
cite news:	Silverman, Dwight (July 15, 2011). "Microsoft envisions a universal OS, but it might not be called Windows". Houston Chronicle. Hearst Corporation. Retrieved May 26, 2015.

Examples

• {{cite web |url=https://www.example.org/ |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |last=Doe |first=John |publisher=Open Publishing |date=April 30, 2005 |website=Encyclopedia of Things |access-date=April 22, 2026}}

  Doe, John (April 30, 2005). "My Favorite Things, Part II". Encyclopedia of Things. Open Publishing. Retrieved April 22, 2026.

• {{cite web |url=https://www.example.org/ |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |last=Doe |first=John |date=30 April 2005 |website=Encyclopedia of Things |access-date=22 April 2026}}

  Doe, John (30 April 2005). "My Favorite Things, Part II". Encyclopedia of Things. Retrieved 22 April 2026.

• {{cite web |url=https://www.example.org/ |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |last=Doe |first=John |date=2005-04-30 |access-date=2026-04-22}}

  Doe, John (2005-04-30). "My Favorite Things, Part II". Retrieved 2026-04-22.

• {{cite web |url=https://www.example.org/ |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |last=Doe |first=John |access-date=22 April 2026}}

  Doe, John. "My Favorite Things, Part II". Retrieved 22 April 2026.

• {{cite web |url=https://www.example.org/ |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |access-date=2026-04-22}}

  "My Favorite Things, Part II". Retrieved 2026-04-22.

• {{cite web |url=https://operations.nfl.com/the-rules/nfl-rules-digest/ |title=NFL Rules Digest |website=NFL Football Operations |publisher=[[National Football League]] |access-date=April 22, 2026}}

  "NFL Rules Digest". NFL Football Operations. National Football League. Retrieved April 22, 2026.

Using "format="

When this template detects a link whose URL includes an extension of ".pdf" or ".PDF", typical of PDF files, it automatically displays a PDF icon after the link (regardless of whether the link goes to a PDF file or to an HTML landing page, typical of paysites). It also internally acts as if |format=PDF had been specified, which displays " (PDF)" after the icon. (In this case, an explicit |format=PDF parameter would be redundant, so it is not recommended to add it. Users may remove it. Citation bot, when invoked, will remove it. (ref))

• {{cite web |url=https://www.indiapost.gov.in/Pdf/Customs/List_of_Psychotropic_Substances.pdf |title=List of psychotropic substances under international control |publisher=International Narcotics Control Board |access-date=22 April 2026}}

  "List of psychotropic substances under international control" (PDF). International Narcotics Control Board. Retrieved 22 April 2026.

If the link is to a PDF file that is not automatically recognizable by its extension, this template does not display the PDF icon. You may add the parameter |format=PDF, which displays " (PDF)" after the link (but no PDF icon).

• {{cite web |url=https://www.sample.com/somePDFdocument.000 |title=Some PDF Document |publisher=Sample Int'l |format=PDF |access-date=22 April 2026}}

  "Some PDF Document" (PDF). Sample Int'l. Retrieved 22 April 2026.

For links to files in other formats, no icon is displayed. For example, for an .odt file, you may add the parameter |format=ODT, which displays " (ODT)" after the link.

• {{cite web |url=https://www.sample.com/someODTdocument.odt |title=Some ODT Document |publisher=Sample Int'l |format=ODT |access-date=22 April 2026}}

  "Some ODT Document" (ODT). Sample Int'l. Retrieved 22 April 2026.

Foreign language and translated title

• {{cite web |url=https://www.example.org/ |title=Honi soit qui mal y pense |last=Joliet |first=François |date=30 April 2005 |access-date=22 April 2026 |language=fr |trans-title=Shame on those who think evil of it}}

  Joliet, François (30 April 2005). "Honi soit qui mal y pense" [Shame on those who think evil of it] (in français). Retrieved 22 April 2026.

Using author-link

• {{cite web |url=https://www.example.org/ |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |last=Doe |first=John |author-link=John Doe |publisher=Open Publishing |date=April 30, 2005 |website=Encyclopedia of Things |access-date=April 22, 2026}}

  Doe, John (April 30, 2005). "My Favorite Things, Part II". Encyclopedia of Things. Open Publishing. Retrieved April 22, 2026.

Multiple authors

• {{cite web |url=https://www.example.org/ |title=Our Favourite Things |last1=Doe |first1=John |last2=Smith |first2=Peter |last3=Smythe |first3=Jim |publisher=Open Publishing |date=30 April 2005 |website=Encyclopaedia of Things |access-date=22 April 2026}}

  Doe, John; Smith, Peter; Smythe, Jim (30 April 2005). "Our Favourite Things". Encyclopaedia of Things. Open Publishing. Retrieved 22 April 2026.

No author

• {{cite web |url=https://www.example.org/ |title=Index of Sharp Things |publisher=Open Publishing |date=2005-04-30 |website=Encyclopedia of Things |access-date=2026-04-22}}

  "Index of Sharp Things". Encyclopedia of Things. Open Publishing. 2005-04-30. Retrieved 2026-04-22.

No author, no publisher

• {{cite web |url=https://www.example.org/ |title=Index of Sharp Things |date=30 April 2005 |website=Encyclopedia of Things |access-date=22 April 2026}}

  "Index of Sharp Things". Encyclopedia of Things. 30 April 2005. Retrieved 22 April 2026.

• {{cite web |url=https://www.example.org/ |title=Index of Sharp Things |date=April 30, 2005 |access-date=April 22, 2026}}

  "Index of Sharp Things". April 30, 2005. Retrieved April 22, 2026.

• {{cite web |url=https://www.incb.org/pdf/e/list/green.pdf |title=List of psychotropic substances under international control |date=2005-04-30 |access-date=2026-04-22 |language=el}}

  "List of psychotropic substances under international control" (PDF) (in Ελληνικά). 2005-04-30. Retrieved 2026-04-22.

Using "archive-url" and "archive-date" (and optionally "url-status") for webpages that have been archived

By default, if "archive-url" is used, the parameter |url-status=dead is assumed and the resulting main link is to the archived version:

• {{cite web |url=http://www.incb.org/pdf/e/list/green.pdf |title=List of psychotropic substances under international control |date=2005-04-30 |publisher=International Narcotics Control Board |access-date=2026-04-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050907150136/http://www.incb.org/pdf/e/list/green.pdf |archive-date=2005-09-07}}

  "List of psychotropic substances under international control" (PDF). International Narcotics Control Board. 2005-04-30. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2005-09-07. Retrieved 2026-04-22.

When |url-status=live is specified, the resulting main link is to the original page:

• {{cite web |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dc-entertainment-give-classic-batman-824572 |title=DC Entertainment To Give Classic Batman Writer Credit in 'Gotham' and 'Batman v Superman' (Exclusive) |website=The Hollywood Reporter |date=September 18, 2015 |access-date=September 21, 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151022181821/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dc-entertainment-give-classic-batman-824572 |archive-date=October 22, 2015}}

  "DC Entertainment To Give Classic Batman Writer Credit in 'Gotham' and 'Batman v Superman' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. September 18, 2015. Archived from the original on October 22, 2015. Retrieved September 21, 2015.

With |url-status=unfit or <syntaxhighlight lang="text" class="" id="" style="" inline="1">usurped</syntaxhighlight>, the original is not linked at all:

• {{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 |access-date=22 April 2026 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110522171657/http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/03772.html |archive-date=22 May 2011}}

  "London, United Kingdom Forecast: Weather Underground (weather and elevation at Heathrow Airport)". The Weather Underground. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Retrieved 22 April 2026.

Using quote

• {{cite web |url=https://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/c.html |title=Daylight saving time: rationale and original idea |website=WebExhibits |date=2008 |access-date=22 April 2026 |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. Retrieved 22 April 2026. ... 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.

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

COinS

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=

What's new

What's new or changed recently

Parameter	Description	Date
N/A

Deprecated

{{#lst:Help:CS1 errors|deprecated_params_table}} {{#lst:Help:CS1 errors|deleted_params_table}}

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.
• others: To record other contributors to the work, including illustrators. For the parameter value, write Illustrated by John Smith.

• 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

(See also Help:Citation Style 1 § Titles and chapters.)

• title: Title of source page on website. Displays in quotation marks. For titles containing quotation marks, convert regular quotation marks (") to single quotation marks ('). See MOS:QINQ for guidance in more complex situations. If script-title is defined, use title to hold a Romanization (if available) of the title in script-title.
  • script-title: Original title for languages that do not use a Latin-based script (Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, etc); follows Romanization defined in title (if present). Must be prefixed with one of the supported language codes to help browsers properly display the script:

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

  • trans-title: English translation of the title if the source cited is in a foreign language. Displays in square brackets after title; trans-title is included in the link. Use of the language parameter is recommended.

Titles containing certain characters will display and link incorrectly unless those characters are encoded.

newline	[	]	|
space	[	]	|
	{{bracket|text}}		{{pipe}} – see also Help:Table § Rendering pipe itself

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.

• website: Title of website (when the website has a clear name, use that rather than the domain name); may be wikilinked. Displays in italics. Aliases: work

• 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.

• language: 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: español at a French-language wiki instead of the English word "Spanish". Aliases: lang

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

Website

• work (required by {{cite journal}} and {{cite magazine}}): Name of the work containing the source; may be wikilinked if relevant. Displays in italics. If the name of the periodical changed over time use the name at the time of the source's publication. If script-work is defined, use work to hold a Romanization (if available) of the title in script-work. Aliases: journal, newspaper, magazine, periodical, website. Use Latin script. For languages written in non-Latin based scripts (Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Indic, Japanese, Korean, etc.) use a standard Romanization in this field.
  • script-work: Work title in its original, non-Latin script; not italicized, follows italicized Romanization defined in work (if present). Must be prefixed with one of the supported language codes to help browsers properly display the script. Leave empty for Latin-based scripts (Czech, French, Turkish, Vietnamese, etc.). Aliases: script-journal, script-newspaper, script-magazine, script-periodical, script-website.
  • trans-work: English translation of the work title if the source cited is in a foreign language. Displays in square brackets after work or script-work. Aliases: trans-journal, trans-newspaper, trans-magazine, trans-periodical, trans-website.

    ... |work=Zhōngguó piàofáng |script-work=zh:中国票房 |trans-work=China Box Office ...

When set, work changes the formatting of other parameters in the same citation:

title is not italicized and is enclosed in quotes.

chapter does not display (and will produce an error message).

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. 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.

• agency: The news agency (wire service) that provided the content; examples: Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse. Do not use for sources published on the agency's own website; e.g. apnews.com or reuters.com; instead, use work or publisher. May be wikilinked if relevant.

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 <syntaxhighlight lang="text" class="" id="" style="" inline="1">p.</syntaxhighlight> 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 <syntaxhighlight lang="text" class="" id="" style="" inline="1">pp.</syntaxhighlight> 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 <syntaxhighlight lang="text" class="" id="" style="" inline="1">p.</syntaxhighlight> or <syntaxhighlight lang="text" class="" id="" style="" inline="1">pp.</syntaxhighlight> 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.

Access-date

See § url.

Anchor

Not to be confused with § Identifiers.

• ref: 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: none. See Template:Citation/doc § Anchors for Harvard referencing templates.

Identifiers

Not to be confused with § Anchor.

• 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: 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: eprint.
• asin: Amazon Standard Identification Number; if first character of asin value is a digit, use isbn. Because this link favours one specific distributor, include it only if standard identifiers are not available. Example |asin=B00005N5PF. Aliases: ASIN.
  • asin-tld: ASIN top-level domain for Amazon sites other than the US; valid values: {{#lst:Help:CS1 errors|asin-tld_values_list}}. Aliases: none.
• bibcode: bibcode; used by a number of astronomical data systems; for example: 1974AJ.....79..819H. Aliases: none.
• biorxiv: 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: none.
• citeseerx: 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: none.
• doi: Digital object identifier; for example: 10.1038/news070508-7. It is checked to ensure it begins with (<syntaxhighlight lang="text" class="" id="" style="" inline="1">10.</syntaxhighlight>). Aliases: DOI.
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid DOIs using a non-standard format, see below.
  • doi-broken-date: 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: none.
• eissn: 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: EISSN.
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid eISSNs using a non-standard format, see below.
• hdl: Handle System identifier for digital objects and other resources on the Internet; example |hdl=20.1000/100. Aliases: HDL.
• isbn: 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 sbn. 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: ISBN.
  • 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.
• ismn: 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: ISMN.
• issn: 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: ISSN.
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid ISSNs using a non-standard format, see below.
• jfm: ; do not include "JFM" in the value; example |jfm=53.0144.01. Aliases: JFM.
• jstor: JSTOR reference number; for example: |jstor=3793107. Aliases: JSTOR.
• lccn: 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: LCCN.
• mr: Mathematical Reviews; example |mr=630583. Aliases: MR.
• oclc: OCLC Number for looking up publications in the WorldCat union catalog; example |oclc=9355469. Aliases: OCLC.
• ol: Open Library identifier; do not include "OL" in the value; example |ol=7030731M. Aliases: OL.
• osti: Office of Scientific and Technical Information; example |osti=4367507. Aliases: OSTI.
• pmc: 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 pmid parameter, below; these are two different identifiers. Aliases: PMC.
  • pmc-embargo-date: Date that pmc goes live; if this date is in the future, then pmc is not linked until that date. Aliases: none.
• pmid: PubMed; use unique identifier; example |pmid=17322060 See also the pmc parameter, above; these are two different identifiers. Aliases: PMID.
• rfc: Request for Comments; example |rfc=3143. Aliases: RFC.
• sbn: Standard Book Number; example |sbn=356-02201-3. Aliases: SBN.
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid SBNs using a non-standard format, see below.
• ssrn: Social Science Research Network; example |ssrn=1900856. Aliases: SSRN.
• s2cid: Semantic Scholar corpus ID; example |s2cid=37220927. Aliases: S2CID.
• zbl: ; example |zbl=0472.53010 For zbMATH search results like JFM 35.0387.02 use |jfm=35.0387.02. Aliases: ZBL.

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 <syntaxhighlight lang="text" class="" id="" style="" inline="1">p.</syntaxhighlight> 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 <syntaxhighlight lang="text" class="" id="" style="" inline="1">pp.</syntaxhighlight> 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."

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.

Subscription or registration required

Citations of online sources that require registration or a subscription are acceptable in Wikipedia as documented in Verifiability § Access to sources. As a courtesy to readers and other editors, editors should signal restrictions on access to material provided via the external links included in a citation. These levels describe requirements or constraints related to accessing and viewing the cited material; they are not intended to indicate the ability to reuse, or the copyright status, of the material, since that status is not relevant to verifying claims in articles.

Four access levels can be used:

• access indicator for named identifiers:
  • Freely accessible free: the source is free to read for anyone
• access indicators for url-holding parameters:
  • Free registration required registration: a free registration with the provider is required to access the source, even if a limited preview, abstract or review may still be available without registration
  • Free access subject to limited trial, subscription normally required limited: free access is subject to limited trial and a subscription is normally required
  • Paid subscription required subscription: the source is only accessible via a paid subscription with the provider of the source ("paywall")

As there are often multiple external links with different access levels in the same citation, each value is attributed to a specific external link.

Access indicators for url-holding parameters

Main article: WP:CONLINK

Online sources linked by |url=, |article-url=, |chapter-url=, |contribution-url=, |entry-url=, |map-url=, and |section-url= are presumed to be free-to-read. When they are not free-to-read, editors should mark those sources with the matching access-indicator parameter so that an appropriate icon is included in the rendered citation. Because the sources linked by these URL-holding parameters are presumed to be free-to-read, they are not marked as free. If the registration/limited/subscription access to the source goes dead and is no longer available, then remove the access-indicator parameter and add |archive-url= and |archive-date= values if possible.

URL-holding and access-indicator parameters

URL	Access	Allowed keywords
|url=	|url-access=	registration Free registration required limited Free access subject to limited trial, subscription normally required subscription Paid subscription required
|article-url=	|article-url-access=
|chapter-url=	|chapter-url-access=
|contribution-url=	|contribution-url-access=
|entry-url=	|entry-url-access=
|map-url=	|map-url-access=
|section-url=	|section-url-access=

For example, this cites a web page that requires registration but not subscription:

<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">"Nifty example data". 2021-04-15.</syntaxhighlight>

which renders as:

"Nifty example data". 2021-04-15.

Access indicator for named identifiers

Links inserted by named identifiers are presumed to lie behind a paywall or registration barrier – exceptions listed below. When they are free-to-read, editors should mark those sources with the matching access-indicator parameter so that an appropriate icon is included in the rendered citation. When the sources linked by these named-identifier parameters are not presumed to carry a free-to-read full text (for instance because they're just abstracting services), they may not be marked as limited, registration, or subscription.

Named-identifier and access-indicator parameters

Identifier	Access	Allowed keywords
|bibcode=	|bibcode-access=	free Freely accessible
|doi=	|doi-access=
|hdl=	|hdl-access=
|jstor=	|jstor-access=
|ol=	|ol-access=
|osti=	|osti-access=
|ssrn=	|ssrn-access=
|s2cid=	|s2cid-access=

Some named-identifiers are always free-to-read. For those named identifiers there are no access-indicator parameters; the access level is automatically indicated by the template. These named identifiers are:

• |arxiv=
• |biorxiv=
• |citeseerx=
• |medrxiv=
• |pmc=
• |rfc=

For embargoed pmc that will become available in the future, see pmc-embargo-date.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Cite web in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Cite web

Template:Cite web uses standard parameter set; TemplateData has errors:

• |authors= is not a valid parameter

Formats a citation to a website using the provided information such as URL and title. Used only for sources that are not correctly described by the specific citation templates for books, journals, news sources, etc.

Template parameters[Edit template data]

This template has custom formatting.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Last name	last last1 author author1 author1-last author-last surname1 author-last1 subject1 surname author-last subject	The surname of the author; don't wikilink, use 'author-link'; can suffix with a numeral to add additional authors	Line	suggested
First name	first given author-first first1 given1 author-first1 author1-first	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the author; don't wikilink, use 'author-link'; can suffix with a numeral to add additional authors	Line	suggested
Author link	author-link author-link1 author1-link subject-link subject-link1 subject1-link authorlink	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the author; can suffix with a numeral to add additional authors	Page name	optional
Last name 2	last2 author2	The surname of the second author; don't wikilink, use 'author-link2'.	Line	optional
First name 2	first2	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the second author; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Author link 2	author-link2 author2-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the second author.	Page name	optional
Last name 3	last3 author3	The surname of the third author; don't wikilink, use 'author-link3'.	Line	optional
First name 3	first3	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the third author; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Author link 3	author-link3 author3-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the third author.	Page name	optional
Last name 4	last4 author4	The surname of the fourth author; don't wikilink, use 'author-link4'.	Line	optional
First name 4	first4	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the fourth author; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Author link 4	author-link4 author4-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the fourth author.	Page name	optional
Last name 5	last5 author5	The surname of the fifth author; don't wikilink, use 'author-link5'.	Line	optional
First name 5	first5	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the fifth author; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Author link 5	author-link5 author5-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the fifth author.	Page name	optional
Last name 6	last6 author6	The surname of the sixth author; don't wikilink, use 'author-link6'.	Line	optional
First name 6	first6	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the sixth author; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Author link 6	author-link6 author6-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the sixth author.	Page name	optional
Last name 7	last7 author7	The surname of the seventh author; don't wikilink, use 'author-link7'.	Line	optional
First name 7	first7	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the seventh author; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Author link 7	author-link7 author7-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the seventh author.	Page name	optional
Last name 8	last8 author8	The surname of the eighth author; don't wikilink, use 'author-link8'.	Line	optional
First name 8	first8	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the eighth author; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Author link 8	author-link8 author8-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the eighth author.	Page name	optional
Last name 9	last9 author9	The surname of the ninth author; don't wikilink, use 'author-link9'.	Line	optional
First name 9	first9	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the ninth author; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Author link 9	author-link9 author9-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the ninth author.	Page name	optional
Authors list	authors	List of authors as a free form list. This parameter is deprecated, use "lastn" or "firstn" (preferred) or "authorn" or "vauthors". Warning: do not use if last or any of its aliases are used.	String	deprecated
Author mask	author-mask	Replaces the name of the first author with em dashes or text; set to a numeric value 'n' to set the dash 'n' em spaces wide; set to a text value to display the text without a trailing author separator; for example, 'with' instead	String	optional
Display authors	display-authors	Number of authors to display before 'et al.' is used. By default, all authors are displayed. Examples: |display-authors=2 will display only the first two authors in a citation followed by et al. |display-authors=etal displays all authors in the list followed by et al.	String	optional
Name list style	name-list-style	Set to 'amp' or 'and' to change the separator between the last two names of the name list to ' & ' or ' and ', respectively. Set to 'vanc' to display name lists in Vancouver style. Suggested values amp and vanc	String	optional
Source date	date	Full date when the source was published; if unknown, use access-date instead; do not wikilink	Date	suggested
Year of publication	year	Year of the source being referenced; deprecated in favor of 'date', except for the special case of ISO dates with disambiguating letter	String	optional
Original date	orig-date	Original date of publication; provide specifics	String	optional
Editor last name	editor-last editor1-last editor	The surname of the editor; don't wikilink, use 'editor-link'; can suffix with a numeral to add additional editors.	Line	optional
Editor first name	editor-first editor1-first	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the editor; don't wikilink, use 'editor-link'; can suffix with a numeral to add additional editors; alias of 'editor1-first'	Line	optional
Editor link	editor-link editor1-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the editor; can suffix with a numeral to add additional editors	Page name	optional
Editor last name 2	editor2-last editor2	The surname of the second editor; don't wikilink, use 'editor2-link'.	Line	optional
Editor first name 2	editor2-first	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the second editor; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Editor link 2	editor2-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the second editor.	Page name	optional
Editor last name 3	editor3-last editor3	The surname of the third editor; don't wikilink, use 'editor3-link'.	Line	optional
Editor first name 3	editor3-first	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the third editor; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Editor link 3	editor3-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the third editor.	Page name	optional
Editor last name 4	editor4-last editor4	The surname of the fourth editor; don't wikilink, use 'editor4-link'.	Line	optional
Editor first name 4	editor4-first	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the fourth editor; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Editor link 4	editor4-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the fourth editor.	Page name	optional
Editor last name 5	editor5-last editor5	The surname of the fifth editor; don't wikilink, use 'editor5-link'.	Line	optional
Editor first name 5	editor5-first	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the fifth editor; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Editor link 5	editor5-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the fifth editor.	Page name	optional
Editor last name 6	editor6-last editor6	The surname of the sixth editor; don't wikilink, use 'editor6-link'.	Line	optional
Editor first name 6	editor6-first	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the sixth editor; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Editor link 6	editor6-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the sixth editor.	Page name	optional
Editor last name 7	editor7-last editor7	The surname of the seventh editor; don't wikilink, use 'editor7-link'.	Line	optional
Editor first name 7	editor7-first	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the seventh editor; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Editor link 7	editor7-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the seventh editor.	Page name	optional
Editor last name 8	editor8-last editor8	The surname of the eighth editor; don't wikilink, use 'editor8-link'.	Line	optional
Editor first name 8	editor8-first	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the eighth editor; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Editor link 8	editor8-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the eighth editor.	Page name	optional
Editor last name 9	editor9-last editor9	The surname of the ninth editor; don't wikilink, use 'editor9-link'.	Line	optional
Editor first name 9	editor9-first	Given or first name, middle names, or initials of the ninth editor; don't wikilink.	Line	optional
Editor link 9	editor9-link	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the ninth editor.	Page name	optional
Others	others	Used to record other (non-author) contributions to the work, such as 'Illustrated by John Smith' or 'Translated by John Smith'. Only one ''others'' parameter is allowed: e.g., 'Illustrated by Jane Doe; Translated by John Smith'	String	optional
Title	title	The title of the source page on the website; will display with quotation marks added. Usually found at the top of your web browser. Not the name of the website.	String	required
Script title	script-title	For titles in languages that do not use a Latin-based alphabet (Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, etc.). Prefix with two-character ISO639-1 language code followed by a colon. For Japanese use: |script-title=ja:...	String	optional
Translated title	trans-title	An English language title, if the source cited is in a foreign language; 'language' is recommended	String	optional
URL	url URL	The URL of the online location where the text of the publication can be found. Requires schemes of the type "https://..." or maybe even the protocol relative scheme "//..." Example https://www.metacritic.com//...	URL	required
URL access level	url-access	Classification of the access restrictions on the URL ('registration', 'subscription' or 'limited') Suggested values registration subscription limited	String	optional
URL status	url-status	If set to 'live', the title display is adjusted; useful for when the URL is archived preemptively but still live. Set to "dead" or 'usurped' for broken links. Entering 'unfit' or 'usurped' makes the original link not appear at all. Suggested values dead live usurped unfit deviated Default 'dead' if an Archive URL is entered Example 'dead' or 'live'	String	suggested
Archive URL	archive-url archiveurl	The URL of an archived copy of a web page, if or in case the URL becomes unavailable; requires 'archive-date' Auto value	URL	suggested
Archive date	archive-date archivedate	Date when the original URL was archived; do not wikilink	Date	suggested
Archive format	archive-format	Format of the archived copy; examples: PDF, DOC, XLS; do not specify HTML	String	optional
URL access date	access-date accessdate	The full date when the original URL was accessed; do not wikilink	Date	suggested
Name of the website	website work	Title (name) of the website (or its short URL if no plain-language title is discernible); may be wikilinked; will display in italics. Having both 'publisher' and 'website' is redundant in many cases. Example [[Rotten Tomatoes]]	String	suggested
Series identifier	series	Series identifier when the source is part of a series, such as a book series or a journal	String	optional
Publisher	publisher	Name of the publisher; may be wikilinked. Having both 'publisher' and 'website' (a.k.a. 'work') is redundant in many cases. Example [[Fandom, Inc.]] (which owns "Metacritic.com")	String	optional
Place	place	For news stories with a dateline, the location where the story was written; will be treated as the publication place if publication place is absent; alias of 'location'	String	optional
Page	page	Page in the source that supports the content; displays after 'p.'	String	optional
Pages	pages	Pages in the source that support the content (not an indication of the number of pages in the source); displays after 'pp.'	String	optional
At	at	May be used instead of 'page' or 'pages' where a page number is inappropriate or insufficient	String	optional
Language	language lang	The language in which the source is written, if not English; use a two-letter language code or the full language name. Do not use icons or templates. Separate multiple languages with commas Example de, fr, es	String	optional
Type	type	Additional information about the media type of the source; format in sentence case	String	optional
Format	format	Format of the work referred to by 'url'; examples: PDF, DOC, XLS; do not specify HTML	String	optional
Place of publication	publication-place	Publication place shows after title; if 'place' or 'location' are also given, they are displayed before the title prefixed with 'written at'	String	optional
Publication date	publication-date	Date of publication when different from the date the work was written; do not wikilink	Date	optional
Published via	via	Name of the entity hosting the original copy of the work, if different from the publisher. This entity is committed not to alter the work. Example [[GitHub]], [[SourceForge]], [[CodePlex]], [[YouTube]], [[Vimeo]], [[Dailymotion]], [[Netflix]], [[Archive.org]], [[Wikimedia Commons]], [[grc.com]]	String	optional
No pp	no-pp	Set to 'y' to suppress the 'p.' or 'pp.' display with 'page' or 'pages' when inappropriate (such as 'Front cover') Auto value y	Boolean	optional
arXiv identifier	arxiv	An identifier for arXive electronic preprints of scientific papers	String	optional
ASIN	asin	Amazon Standard Identification Number; 10 characters	String	optional
ASIN TLD	asin-tld	ASIN top-level domain for Amazon sites other than the US	String	optional
Bibcode	bibcode	Bibliographic Reference Code (REFCODE); 19 characters	String	optional
biorXiv	biorxiv	biorXiv identifier; 6 digits	Line	optional
CiteSeerX	citeseerx	CiteSeerX identifier; found after the 'doi=' query parameter	Line	optional
DOI	doi	Digital Object Identifier; begins with '10.'	String	optional
DOI broken date	doi-broken-date	The date that the DOI was determined to be broken Auto value	Date	optional
ISBN	isbn	International Standard Book Number; use the 13-digit ISBN where possible	String	optional
ISSN	issn	International Standard Serial Number; 8 characters; may be split into two groups of four using a hyphen	String	optional
jfm code	jfm	Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik classification code	String	optional
JSTOR	jstor	JSTOR identifier	String	optional
LCCN	lccn	Library of Congress Control Number	String	optional
MR	mr	Mathematical Reviews identifier	String	optional
OCLC	oclc	Online Computer Library Center number	String	optional
OL	ol	Open Library identifier	String	optional
OSTI	osti	Office of Scientific and Technical Information identifier	String	optional
PMC	pmc	PubMed Center article number	String	optional
PMID	pmid	PubMed Unique Identifier	String	optional
RFC	rfc	Request for Comments number	String	optional
SSRN	ssrn	Social Science Research Network	String	optional
Zbl	zbl	Zentralblatt MATH journal identifier	String	optional
id	id	A unique identifier used where none of the specialized ones are applicable	String	optional
Quote	quote	Relevant text quoted from the source; displays last, enclosed in quotes; must include terminating punctuation	String	optional
Translated quote	trans-quote	English translation of the quotation if the source quoted is in a foreign language. Displays in square brackets.	String	optional
Ref	ref	An anchor identifier; can be made the target of wikilinks to full references	String	optional
Postscript	postscript	The closing punctuation for the citation; ignored if 'quote' is defined Default .	String	optional
Edition	edition	Specify the edition or revision of the source, when applicable. For example: '2nd' or '5.1'. What you supply here is suffixed by ' ed.' Example 2nd	Line	optional
Bibcode access level	bibcode-access	If the full text is available from ADS via this Bibcode, type 'free'. Auto value free	String	optional
DOI access level	doi-access	If the full text is free to read via the DOI, type 'free'. Auto value free	String	optional
HDL access level	hdl-access	If the full text is free to read via the HDL, type 'free'. Auto value free	String	optional
Jstor access level	jstor-access	If the full text is free to read on Jstor, type 'free'. Auto value free	String	optional
OpenLibrary access level	ol-access	If the full text is free to read on OpenLibrary, type 'free'. Auto value free	String	optional
OSTI access level	osti-access	If the full text is free to read on OSTI, type 'free'. Auto value free	String	optional
Agency	agency	The news agency (wire service) that provided the content; examples: Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse	String	optional

Notes

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.