The forms website and web site are the most commonly used forms, the former especially in British English. The Associated Press Style book, Reuters, Microsoft, academia, book publishing, The Chicago Manual of Style, and dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster use the two-word, initially capitalized spelling Web site. This is because "Web" is not a general term but a short form of World Wide Web. As with many newly created terms, it may take some time before a common spelling is finalized. This controversy also applies to derivative terms such as web page, web master, and web cam.

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary and the Canadian Press Style book list "website" and "web page" as the preferred spellings. The Oxford English Dictionary began using "website" as its standardized form in 2004.[3]

Bill Walsh, the copy chief of The Washington Post's national desk, and one of American English's foremost grammarians, argues for the two-word spelling with capital W in his books Lapsing into a Comma and The Elephants of Style, and on his site, the Slot.[4]