Are you having trouble finding who published a website, blog post, or article in an online magazine? Finding the publisher of a website is important when creating a works cited or bibliography page in the MLA and Chicago writing styles, as well as when citing certain documents in the APA format. Whether you need the publisher or sponsor for research paper citations or are just curious about the institution behind a website, we can help! This minHour article will teach you the most reliable ways to find who published a website or article on the web.
Check the footer.
Scroll down to the bottom of the website’s main page to find the publisher.
Most websites add a footer to the bottom of the Home page that contains the publisher or organization’s name and copyright notice.
- Look for the copyright symbol © in the footer of the site’s main page. “Inc” or “LLC” might follow the publisher’s name if it’s a company.
- Sometimes the publisher will be the same or similar to the name of the website. For example, if you’re citing wikiHow, the publisher is wikiHow. If you’re citing an online article on the New York Times website, the publisher is New York Times.
- If you’re creating an MLA works cited page, you don’t have to list the publisher if the content is in a periodical (including journals, newspapers, and magazines), is self-published, or hosted by a third-party hosting platform (like YouTube or WordPress).
Try the About Us or Contact page.
Look for a tab or link to a page called About Us, Contact, or Legal.
You’ll often find these pages in a website’s main menu, header, or at the bottom of the page. These pages often supply more information about the business or organization behind a website, including the publisher or sponsoring organization.
- You may also find more information about the organization on pages called Team, Staff, or Careers.
Look up the domain name.
A simple domain lookup will often provide the publisher or sponsor name.
The site’s domain name (e.g., wikiHow.com or Microsoft.com) will typically be registered to the official publishing organization. To look up the owner of a domain, you can do a “whois” lookup, which will typically provide the name of the organization that registered the domain.
- One easy whois lookup tool is https://who.is. Just type the domain name (including the .com, .org, or other domain suffix) into the field at the top of the page and click the blue magnifying glass to search.
- The business or organization that registered the domain name will appear in the “Registrant Contact Information” section next to “Name.”
- Some domain registrants choose to keep this information private. If you see something like “Contract Privacy Inc” or any other text that indicates the registrant is private, you won’t want to cite this name—it’s not the name of the publisher.
Find the site’s page on social media.
If the website’s owners have a social media presence, you can often find the publisher or sponsor information easily.
Many online publications, including blogs and journals, have a Facebook Page, Twitter account, or even a presence on LinkedIn. Search for the name of the website or blog on different platforms to find the name of the company or organization behind the content.
Search Google for “publisher of (site name).”
A quick Google search may provide you with all the publisher information you’ll ever need.
Try searching for “publisher of website name” and see what comes up. You can also try variations of this search query, such as “owner of website”.
- You can also use Google to find the publication date of a website if it’s not obvious in the article or post.
Contact the author.
If there’s an author listed on the page or article, you can try contacting them for more information.
Sometimes clicking the author’s name on the post or article will bring you to a more detailed page that includes the author’s bio, contact information, and the organization they represent. If you plan to cite the publisher in your essay, paper, or web content, you can send an email or direct message to the author to ask for the proper publisher to add to your citation.
Tips
- Sources for which you cannot determine a publisher may be unreliable. If you can’t find a publisher, try to find a more official source.
- In APA citation format, you’ll use the site name in your references instead of searching for the name of a publisher.
- In the MLA format, if you’re citing a website that has the same name as the publisher or sponsor, you can omit the publisher from the source on your works cited page.