Cite websites and online sources with BibLaTeX.

Standard web page entry

Save this entry in your .bib file. Always format urldate in ISO 8601 numeric order (YYYY-MM-DD), because Biber parses this format to print localised phrases such as 'visited on 14 May 2026' or 'accessed May 14, 2026' according to your babel or polyglossia language settings.

@online{knuth_web,
  author       = {Donald E. Knuth},
  title        = {Knuth: Computers and Typesetting},
  date         = {2024-03-01},
  url          = {https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/abcde.html},
  urldate      = {2026-02-15}
}

Corporate or institutional author

Wrap multi-word organisations or companies in double curly braces. Without the inner braces, BibLaTeX treats the final word as a surname and typesets 'W3C, World Wide Web Consortium' or 'Foundation, Linux'.

@online{w3c_wai,
  author       = {{World Wide Web Consortium}},
  title        = {Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2},
  date         = {2023-10-05},
  url          = {https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/},
  urldate      = {2026-01-20},
  organization = {W3C}
}

Minimal working example

Load biblatex and specify your citation and bibliography style. Load hyperref or xurl so long URLs break cleanly across lines and remain clickable in the compiled PDF output.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[british]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage{xurl}
\usepackage[colorlinks=true,citecolor=blue,urlcolor=blue]{hyperref}
\usepackage[backend=biber,style=numeric]{biblatex}

\addbibresource{references.bib}

\begin{document}
According to recent guidelines, web accessibility is measurable \autocite{w3c_wai}.
\textcite{knuth_web} documents the font design process.

\printbibliography
\end{document}

In-text citation commands

Use \autocite{key} for general citations. In numeric styles it creates bracketed numbers like [1], while in author-year styles it produces parenthetical citations like (Knuth, 2024). Use \textcite{key} when the author's name forms part of your running sentence.

% Parenthetical citation
\autocite{w3c_wai}

% Narrative citation
\textcite{knuth_web} stated that typography requires precision.

Long URLs overflowing the page margin

Standard LaTeX break algorithms struggle with long unbroken URL strings. Load xurl before biblatex or hyperref. It adds allowable break points after every alphanumeric character and symbol without mangling the actual link destination.

\usepackage{xurl}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex}

Missing author or undated web pages

When a web article has no stated author or company, omit the author field. BibLaTeX will automatically alphabetise and print the title in place of the author. If no release year exists, omitting date will format the entry cleanly without throwing compilation errors.

@online{ctan_lion,
  title   = {Drawings of the CTAN Lion},
  url     = {https://www.ctan.org/lion},
  urldate = {2026-03-01}
}

URL date not printing in reference list

Certain non-standard or older styles suppress urldate unless explicitly configured. Ensure you have not set urldate=none in the package options. In standard styles, urldate displays as long as the field uses the strict format.

Print subdivided bibliographies by entry type

You can call \printbibliography multiple times with type filters. The nottype=online filter captures articles, books, and conference proceedings, while type=online isolates websites into their own sub-heading.

\printbibheading[title={References}]
\printbibliography[heading=subbibliography,nottype=online,title={Books and Journals}]
\printbibliography[heading=subbibliography,type=online,title={Online Sources}]