How major style guides rule on "website"
AP dropped 'Web site' in 2010, capping a decade-long migration toward the closed compound.
The disagreement on "website" is an example of modernization of formerly hyphenated compounds, the category of style-guide differences that most often confuses copy editors and creates inconsistency across long documents. Below is a guide-by-guide breakdown, drawn directly from the published editions cited.
| Style guide | Preferred form |
|---|---|
| AP Stylebook (2024–2025 Edition) | website |
| Chicago Manual of Style | website |
| MLA Handbook | website |
| APA Publication Manual | website |
| Merriam-Webster Dictionary | website |
What the divergence actually means
The shift toward "website" largely consolidated around 2010, when major American style guides revised their entries to reflect actual published usage. Before that point, editorial style on this word was unsettled, and house styles split along whether they prioritized etymological transparency or contemporary convention. Source: AP Stylebook (2024–2025 Edition)
The APA Publication Manual aligns with AP and Chicago on "website", though APA generally addresses spelling questions only when they intersect with statistical reporting or technical psychology vocabulary. Where the manual is silent, APA defers to Merriam-Webster as its standard reference. Source: APA Publication Manual, 7th Edition
Merriam-Webster lists "website", which serves as the lexicographic baseline for U.S. style decisions. Because Merriam-Webster's entries reflect aggregated published usage rather than editorial preference, when a guide says "follow Merriam-Webster", as APA does, that effectively delegates the call to whichever spelling has dominated the published corpus. Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Garner's Modern English Usage classifies the "website" / "Web site" pair on its Language-Change Index, a five-stage scale measuring whether a once-disputed form has been accepted into Standard English. For modernization of formerly hyphenated compounds, Garner's typically rates the dominant form at Stage 4 ("ubiquitous but objected to by traditionalists") or Stage 5 ("fully accepted"). Source: Garner's Modern English Usage, 5th Edition
Practical guidance for editors
For working writers, the practical rule is straightforward: in journalism, follow AP; in academic writing in the humanities, follow MLA or Chicago; in social-science publishing, follow APA; in book publishing, follow Chicago. When no house style applies, Merriam-Webster's main entry is the safest default. The differences across these guides on "website" reflect not disagreement about correctness but different audiences and editorial pressures.
Editorial context
Google Books Ngram Viewer data documents the crossover point where "website" eclipsed "Web site" in American English print around 2003, a pivotal moment in the compound's evolution from tech jargon to standard lexicon during the web's commercial boom. This shift, visible in corpora spanning millions of scanned books, preceded formal style endorsements and stemmed from natural linguistic compression akin to "email" or "online," as writers favored the seamless one-worder for efficiency. An early example, The museum's website offers virtual tours., proliferates in mid-2000s publications, reflecting everyday adoption in travel guides and business texts. By 2010, "website" claimed over 90 percent dominance, compelling holdouts to concede amid surging digital content. Such evidence highlights how editorial consensus often trails descriptive usage, particularly for internet-era terms where innovation outpaces tradition, ensuring "website" as the prevailing form despite residual "Web site" in legacy technical writing.
Cross-references
For the dictionary entry, frequency data, and pronunciation of website, see the main word page. For other style-guide spelling decisions in this category, browse all style-guide spelling rulings.