Citing a website in your academic research or essay can be laborious and potentially frustrating, but there are a few techniques for finding the correct publication date. To find the publication date of a page, search on the site itself and on the URL. In addition, you can also do a brief Google search using an operator capable of revealing the date. If you need to know when the site was published, you can search the source code. Finding this information is not always a simple task. So, if you can't find it, cite the site without the date.
Steps
Method 1 of 4: Checking the Page and URL
Step 1. Look under the article or post title
Most news sites and blogs usually put the date under the title, next to the author's name. Therefore, look for the date just below the title or at the beginning of the text.
- There may be a small subtitle or an image between the post title and the date. In that case, scroll down the page to look up the date.
- Some articles are updated after the publication date. When this happens, you should find a notice at the beginning or end of the article that contains the update date and the reason.
Variation:
Go back to the website's homepage or the search engine if you cannot find the date. You might find it near the link or the article's thumbnail image.
Step 2. Look for the copyright date at the bottom of the page
You can find copyright information (copyright), original publication date or some informational notice by scrolling to the bottom of the page. The date may be the last update of the site, not the publication of the article.
- A website's update date is the date when something was last added or modified. This means that the article you are reading may have been published at an earlier date. Either way, a recent date means that the site remains active and the information can be trusted.
- Look for a section of the article that contains a short biography of the author. Sometimes the date can be just above or below the biography.
Tip:
The copyright date usually only shows the year and not a specific day or month.
Step 3. See if the date is part of the URL
Take a look at the website's URL address in your browser. Some blogs and websites fill in the address with the post's publication date; maybe you'll find the entire date there or just the month and year of publication.
- Always make sure the page is the post itself, not a file or index page. Click on the title of the post to confirm you are on the correct page.
- Many websites and blogs edit the URL to make it smaller and easier to find by search engines, you won't always find the date that way.
Step 4. Look at the date of the comments to get an estimate
While this method is not very accurate, it can give you an idea of when the article was originally published. The comment's post date is usually close to the commenter's username. Scroll down until you find the oldest date. If the user interacted with the article when it was published, this will be an approximate publication date.
You may not use this date in referring to a website. You can, however, get an idea of how old the information is. If it appears to be recent, you can cite the site as long as you don't specify a date in the reference
Method 2 of 4: Using a Google Operator
Step 1. Copy and paste the website URL into the Google search bar
Use your cursor to select the entire URL, then right click and choose the copy option. From the Google homepage, paste the URL into the search bar. Do not click on Google Search as you will be adding more elements in addition to the URL.
Copy the address in full
Step 2. Type “inurl:
” in front of the URL and hit the search button. This is an operator that will help you find more information about the link; place the cursor in front of the URL and type “inurl:” in front of the link, without any spaces. After adding the operator, press the search button.
- Do not include the quotation marks when typing.
- Using this operator may sound complicated, but all you have to do is type it in and Google will take care of everything else.
Step 3. Add “&as_qdr=y15” after the URL, and then search again
Place your cursor right after the URL you just searched and type: “&as_qdr=y15”, without including the quotes. Hit the search button one more time to view the results list.
- This is the second part of the “inurl:” operator.
- You can just copy and paste the code if you find it easier.
Variation:
You can use the shortcut Ctrl+L in Firefox and Chrome, or Alt+D in Internet Explorer to bring the cursor to the search bar.
Step 4. Look at the results to find the date in the website description
You should find the link to the page you are trying to quote right at the top - look on the left side of the description to find the date. You will usually find her there.
If not, the date may not be available. At this point, you can try to find the date by checking the site's source code to see whether or not to cite the page as an undated page
Step 5. Click Tools
It's in the lower right corner of the Google search bar. The search bar should still have the code "inurl:" with the searched URL.
Step 6. Click On Any Date
It is the second option that appears after you click on the "Tools" button. With it, you can search by date.
Step 7. Click Custom Range
With this, you can select a period and see if the creation date of the page matches any specific day.
You can also click "In the last year" to see if the page has been published recently
Step 8. Enter the start date in the "From:" field
"and the end in "Y:". You can use the calendar on the right to select the dates or enter them in the available fields. You can enter the full date (MM/DD/YYYY) or just month and year.
Step 9. Click Go
Google will search for articles within the requested range. If the page was published within the established period, the date will appear under the URL. If you see an error message, your search did not find any results within your chosen time period. Increase dates to find data for a specific page or use this tool to do more general searches.
Method 3 of 4: Searching the Source Code
Step 1. Right-click on the page and select “display page information”
Once that is done, a new window or tab will open containing the site's source code. This may sound extremely complex, but you don't need to understand any of this to find the date.
Depending on your browser, the option may be “inspect” or some other similar option
Variation:
The keyboard shortcut to open source code directly is Control+U on Windows and Command+U on Mac.
Step 2. Open your browser's “Search” function using Control+F or Command+F
This function will allow you to search the date in the source code easily and quickly. If you are using Windows OS, press Control+F to open the function. If you are using a MAC, the command to search is Command+F.
Variation:
You can also access the search function by clicking on the tools menu on the top bar and clicking on “Search…” or “Search…” in the dropdown menu.
Step 3. Search for the terms “datePublished”, “publishdate” or “published_time”
Type any of the terms and hit enter. The search function will search within the code for the search terms and then take you to them.
- Type “publish” in the search function if none of the terms work. Doing so can display the publication information.
- Search the source code for the term “modified” if you want to know when a page was last changed or updated.
Step 4. Look for the date in the order of day-month-year or year-month-day
Read the code snippet found by the search engine. The date should be right after the search term. It may be the year comes first, followed by the month and day of publication.
You may use this date to cite the website or determine the age of information contained on this page
Method 4 of 4: Citing the website
Step 1. Provide the author's name, title, subtitle, URL, year and date of last access for ABNT format
This method is the most used in Brazil. Write the author's last name in capital letters, followed by the first name and separating the two with a comma. Insert a period and type the title in bold and the first letter in capital letters. After the title, insert a colon and a subtitle, if any. Otherwise, replace the colon with a period. Then you just add the year of publication followed by another period. Finally, type “Available in:”, without including the quotes, and add the page's URL between the signs. At the end of the reference you must also include “Accessed on” and add the date of your last access to the site.
- Here is an example: SILVA, Daniel Neves. night of crystals. 2019. Available at: <https://www.historiadomundo.com.br/idade-contemporanea/noite-dos-cristais.htm>. Accessed on 23 Aug 2019.
Variation:
If you have not found the date, you must provide an approximate date in square brackets.
Step 2. Provide the author's name, year, title and URL to quote in APA style
Write the author's last name and then the first name, separated by a comma, and with a period after the first name. After that, put the year of publication in parentheses, with a full stop right after it. Add the title with the first letter in capital letters, followed by a period. Finally, write “Retrieved from” and include the quoted URL. Remember not to put a period after the URL.
Here's an example: American Robotics Club. (2018). Building Complex Robots. Retrieved from www.americanroboticsclub.com/building-complex-robots
Variation:
You can use "s.d." instead of the year, if you can't find the date. For example, you would write like this: American Robotics Club (s.d.). Building Complex Robots. Retrieved from www.americanroboticsclub.com/building-complex-robots
Step 3. Use the author's name, title, website name, date and URL for Chicago-style citations
List the author's last name and first name, in that order, separated by a comma. Add a period and type the title of the page in capital letters and in quotes, followed by another period. Add the site name in italics and a period. Write “Last Modified On”, providing the date of publication of the site in month, day and year format, adding another period after. Finally, type in the URL and put the last period.
Here's an example: Li, Quan. "Examining Art." Insights into Culture. Last modified Feb 12, 2015. www.insightsintoculture.com/examining-art
Variation:
You can use the Access date if you have not found the publication date. Use the same format, but write “Accessed in” instead of “Last modified in”. For example: Li, Quan. "Examining Art." Insights into Culture. Accessed April 9, 2019. www.insightsintoculture.com/examining-art.
Tips
- Some websites may have other dates associated with them, such as the creation date of the website and the publication date of a particular page. Use the most important date for the information you are using as a reference, usually the date on the individual page.
- Checking the date of a website can help when you need to know if the information is up to date or not.
- Some sites may hide the publication date so that the page looks current, even if it isn't.