The Spelling controversy of website
As noted above, there are several different spellings for this term. Although “website” and “web site” are commonly used (the former especially in British English), the Associated Press Stylebook, 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 shortened 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 master”/”webmaster” and “Web cam”/”webcam”).
The Canadian Oxford Dictionary and the Canadian Press Stylebook list “website” and “web page” as the preferred spellings. The Oxford English Dictionary began using “website” as its standardized form in 2004.[2]
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.