What a Journal Impact Factor Is and What It Is Not
Journal owners ask how to get an impact factor for a journal more than almost any other question, and they hear many conflicting answers. The honest answer begins with a definition. The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a citation metric calculated by Clarivate and published once a year in Journal Citation Reports (JCR). It is given only to journals that are part of the Web of Science Core Collection. No journal can buy one, apply for one directly, or receive one from any other organisation.
Many other numbers carry the words "impact factor" in their name. Some are legitimate metrics from other databases, published under their own names such as CiteScore or SJR. Others are figures calculated by websites from citation data, which can be useful if they are labelled honestly. And some are sold to journals as certificates, with no public data behind them. Telling these apart protects editors from wasting money and protects authors from choosing journals on false signals.
How the Journal Impact Factor Is Calculated
The JIF is a two-year ratio. For a given JCR year, Clarivate counts all citations received in that year by items the journal published in the two previous years, then divides by the number of "citable items" (research articles and review articles) the journal published in those same two years.
- Pick the JCR yearFor example, the 2025 JIF, released in mid-2026
- Count citationsCitations made in 2025 to anything the journal published in 2023 and 2024
- Count citable itemsArticles and reviews the journal published in 2023 and 2024
- DivideCitations divided by citable items gives the JIF
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Citations in 2025 to items published in 2023 | 180 |
| Citations in 2025 to items published in 2024 | 120 |
| Citable items published in 2023 and 2024 | 150 |
| JIF = (180 + 120) / 150 | 2.0 |
Only citations from journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection are counted. A paper cited a hundred times in conference slides, blogs or unindexed journals adds nothing to the JIF. This is why a journal can have a healthy citation count in Google Scholar and a much lower JIF, or none at all.
Related Clarivate metrics
JCR also shows a five-year impact factor, which uses a longer window and suits slower-moving fields, and the Journal Citation Indicator (JCI), which normalises citations by field, year and document type so that a mathematics journal can be compared with a biology journal. JCR also places journals in quartiles (Q1 to Q4) within subject categories; our guide to Web of Science quartiles explains how they work.
How to Get an Official Impact Factor for a Journal
A journal does not apply for an impact factor. It applies for evaluation by the Web of Science Core Collection editorial team. If the journal is accepted into one of the four Core Collection indexes, it becomes eligible for a JIF in a later JCR release once enough citation data exists. Since the 2023 release, Clarivate gives a JIF to every Core Collection journal, including those in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), not only the Science and Social Sciences indexes.
What Clarivate evaluates
Clarivate describes its selection as a set of quality criteria and impact criteria applied by in-house editors who have no ties to publishers. Quality criteria cover the basics a serious journal should already meet: ISSN, a clear title and publisher, an accessible website, peer review policy, ethics statements, editorial board with identifiable affiliations, content that matches the stated scope, English-language titles and abstracts, readable references, and on-time publication. Journals that meet the quality criteria can enter ESCI. The impact criteria, which include citation activity compared with peer journals in the field and the standing of authors and editors, decide entry to SCIE, SSCI or AHCI.
- Before applying
Publish regularly and on time for a sustained period, with complete policies, a real editorial board and consistent metadata. Many editors wait until they have several years of issues.
- Submission
The publisher submits the journal through Clarivate's journal evaluation portal. Clarivate states that evaluation is free; there is no fee at any stage.
- Initial triage
Editors check basic facts such as ISSN, publisher identity, and whether content is available to review.
- Editorial evaluation
Quality criteria are reviewed against recent issues. The process can take many months, and outcomes are accept or reject, with a waiting period before reapplying after a rejection.
- Coverage
Accepted journals are indexed going forward and their citations start being counted.
- First JIF
A JIF appears once the journal has the required years of coverage, in the next annual JCR release.
CiteScore, SJR and the h5-index: Other Legitimate Metrics
Clarivate's JIF is not the only respected journal metric. Three others are widely used in India and abroad, and each has its own database, window and rules. None of them is an "impact factor", and a careful journal names each one correctly.
| Metric | Provider and data | How it works | Who gets it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Journal Impact Factor | Clarivate, Web of Science | Citations in year Y to items from the two prior years, divided by citable items | Web of Science Core Collection journals |
| CiteScore | Elsevier, Scopus | Citations over four years to documents published in those four years, divided by the number of those documents | Scopus-indexed titles; shown free on Scopus Sources |
| SJR | SCImago, using Scopus data | Citations weighted by the prestige of the citing journal over a three-year window | Scopus-indexed titles |
| SNIP | CWTS Leiden, using Scopus data | Citations normalised for how often papers in the field cite | Scopus-indexed titles |
| h5-index and h5-median | Google Scholar Metrics | h-index of articles from the last five complete years | Publications with at least 100 articles in five years that follow Scholar's guidelines |
Notice the pattern: every legitimate metric depends on indexing in a known database and publishes its method. CiteScore and SJR require Scopus coverage, which has its own evaluation process; see our guide on how to index a journal in Scopus. The h5-index requires correct Google Scholar indexing, covered in how to add a journal to Google Scholar.
The Truth About Impact Factor Certificates
Search for "impact factor certificate" and you will find dozens of websites offering a framed certificate with an impressive number, often within days and for a fee. It is important to understand what these documents are.
Clarivate publishes the official JIF in Journal Citation Reports. The proof of a JIF is the journal's entry in JCR, which universities and libraries can check directly. A certificate is not needed to prove an official JIF, and a certificate cannot create one. A certificate from any other organisation, however professional it looks, shows only that the organisation gave the journal a number. Whether that number means anything depends entirely on whether its data and method are public and sound.
An official impact factor is verified in Journal Citation Reports, not on a certificate. If a number can only be shown with a certificate, it is not the Clarivate JIF.
Author certificates are a separate thing
Many journals give authors a certificate of publication. That is a legitimate record that a paper appeared in a given issue. It becomes misleading only when it prints a metric without saying what that metric is. A certificate should name the metric exactly and say who calculated it, or leave metrics out.
How to Spot Fake and Misleading Impact Factor Agencies
Libraries and research-integrity groups have warned for more than a decade about "misleading metrics": organisations that issue impact-factor-style scores to journals, often for a fee, without transparent data. These scores frequently appear on the websites of low-quality journals to suggest a standing they do not have. You do not need a list of names to recognise them; the warning signs are consistent.
Signs of a legitimate metric
- Published, reproducible formula and citation window
- Based on a named citation database you can search
- Free for journals; no payment to be "evaluated"
- Values can fall as well as rise from year to year
- Covers journals that never asked to be included
- Run by an organisation with a verifiable history
Red flags of a misleading one
- Fee for evaluation, listing or a certificate
- No published data showing which citations were counted
- Scores that rise every year regardless of citations
- Names that imitate "Journal Impact Factor" with words like Global, Universal or International
- Numbers issued within days of a new journal's launch
- Indexing claims that you cannot verify on the provider's own site
A new journal with only a few issues cannot have a meaningful two-year citation ratio from any provider. If an agency gives a three-month-old journal a score above most established titles, the number is not measuring citations. Spend the money on DOIs, metadata and editorial quality instead; those actually generate citations.
How Authors Can Check the Impact Factor of a Journal
Authors often see an impressive number on a journal's home page and need to know what it is. A five-minute check answers the question.
- Read the label. Does the journal say who calculated the number and what it is called? An honest journal names the provider.
- Check JCR for a Clarivate JIF. Search the journal title or ISSN in Journal Citation Reports or the free Web of Science Master Journal List, which shows coverage.
- Check Scopus Sources for CiteScore. CiteScore values are shown free on the Scopus Sources page.
- Check SCImago for SJR. The SCImago Journal and Country Rank website is free and searchable.
- Check Google Scholar Metrics for h5-index. Search the journal name in Scholar Metrics; new or small journals will not appear.
- Match the ISSN. Cloned journals copy a real journal's title; confirm the ISSN on the ISSN Portal matches the website you are using.
Calculated Metrics and Honest Labelling: The JMVRA Example
There is a legitimate place for calculated metrics. A young journal that is not yet in Web of Science or Scopus may still want to show readers how often its papers are cited, using open sources such as Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar. That is acceptable as long as the label is exact and nobody could mistake the figure for an official JIF.
JMVRA, the Journal of Modern and Versatile Research Approach (online ISSN 2984-8911, established June 2023, published monthly online by JMVRA Publication), shows its metric with this wording:
JMVRA's 11.25 is a calculated metric based on citations from Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar. It is not an official Clarivate Journal Impact Factor (JCR).
The basis is explained on the JMVRA impact factor and metrics page. JMVRA is not indexed in Web of Science or Scopus and does not claim a JIF, CiteScore or SJR. The journal publishes open access under CC BY 4.0, registers Crossref DOIs under the prefix 10.56975 (shared by the group's journals), and charges a publication fee of ₹971 for Indian authors or US$41 for international authors, payable only after acceptance. Readers who want to publish in a journal within the same network can also look at TIJER (tijer.org) and JNRID (jnrid.org). No journal in the network guarantees acceptance, indexing or any metric.
Name the source
State which citation databases the figure uses.
Say what it is not
Make clear it is not a Clarivate JIF from JCR.
Explain the method
Publish a page that describes how the figure is reached.
Keep it consistent
Use the same wording on the website, certificates and call for papers.
How a Journal Genuinely Grows Citations
Every legitimate metric is built on citations from other researchers. You cannot set the number; you can only make your papers worth citing and easy to find. These practices work for any journal, at any stage.
Publish work worth citing
Rigorous peer review, a focused scope and a willingness to reject weak papers raise average quality, which drives citations more than volume.
Register DOIs with references
Crossref DOIs with complete metadata and reference lists make each paper linkable and let citation services connect citing and cited work.
Be correctly indexed
Clean citation meta tags and text-based PDFs let Google Scholar and others count citations accurately.
Open access with a clear licence
Free-to-read papers under CC BY reach more readers, especially in countries without large library budgets.
Commission reviews
Good review articles tend to attract steady citations, but should be invited from real experts and reviewed as strictly as research papers.
Help authors share
Authors with public profiles and ORCID iDs, who post their papers in repositories, bring readers back to the journal.
Where Journey and Wisdom services fit
JWDOI registers Crossref DOIs and deposits article metadata, giving journals a sponsored DOI prefix without joining Crossref directly. Research Wave supports dissemination through open metadata and repository deposit, and OpenRGATE is a free open-access repository and journal-discovery platform. ScholarRPN is a researcher-centred network that connects an author's publications, profile and citations. These tools make papers easier to find and cite; none of them can promise citations or a metric.
Citation Manipulation: What Gets Journals Penalised
Because metrics matter, some editors try to inflate them. Clarivate checks each year for unusual citation patterns and has suppressed journals from JCR, meaning they receive no JIF for that year, for excessive self-citation and for "citation stacking", where groups of journals cite each other heavily. It has also issued expressions of concern about journals with problematic patterns. Suppression is public and damaging to a journal's reputation.
- Coercive citation: asking authors to add citations to the journal as a condition of acceptance.
- Excessive self-citation: editorials or papers that cite the journal's own recent articles far beyond what the topic needs.
- Citation cartels: agreements between journals or editors to cite each other.
- Reviewer demands: reviewers insisting on citations to their own unrelated work.
- Paper mills and fake references: fabricated papers or reference lists padded with irrelevant citations.
Ethical guidance from COPE treats citation manipulation as misconduct. A clear journal policy that forbids it, and a reviewer guideline that tells reviewers not to request unjustified citations, are simple protections. See the JMVRA policies page for an example of published editorial policies.
A Realistic Timeline From Launch to Recognised Metrics
Metrics take time because citations take time. A paper published today is often cited for the first time one or two years later, after other researchers have read it, done their own work and published. The ranges below are general expectations, not promises, and vary widely by field.
- Year 1
Launch with ISSN, policies, editorial board, DOIs and correct Google Scholar setup. Few or no citations yet. Do not display any "impact factor".
- Years 2-3
First citations appear in Google Scholar. The journal may describe its citation counts honestly and build regular, on-time issues.
- Years 3-5
A track record exists. Many journals apply to databases such as Scopus or Web of Science at this stage; evaluations can take many months.
- After acceptance
Citations are counted from the start of coverage. An official metric appears only after enough years of indexed data.
Illustrative example, invented figures: citations usually grow slowly at first and then faster as the archive gets larger. Real journals vary widely, and many grow more slowly than this.
Using Journal Metrics Responsibly
Even the official JIF has well-known limits. It describes a journal's average, not any single paper; a few highly cited articles can lift the figure for all. It differs greatly between fields, so a JIF of 2 may be strong in mathematics and modest in cell biology. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) asks institutions not to judge individual researchers by journal metrics alone, and many funders and universities now look at the paper itself.
- Compare journals only with others in the same field and the same metric.
- Use the metric's real name: JIF, CiteScore, SJR, h5-index or "calculated metric".
- Look at scope, peer review, editorial board and ethics, not only the number.
- Verify every claimed metric at its source before citing it in an application.
For journal owners, the practical lesson about how to get an impact factor for a journal is this: build a journal that Web of Science or Scopus would accept, label any interim metric honestly, and let citations grow from good papers that are easy to find. If you want help with DOIs, metadata or discovery, contact the team to discuss your requirement at [email protected] or on WhatsApp at +91 91063 65667.
How Journey & Wisdom Helps
JMVRA is published within the Journey & Wisdom group, which runs four shared services — similarity checking, journal management, DOI registration and conference management — and thirteen publication platforms. These are the ones that matter most for this guide. For anything not listed here, email [email protected] or message WhatsApp +91 91063 65667 to discuss your requirement.
Scholar Research Publication Network
Scholar networkA researcher-centred network connecting an author's publications, profile and citations.
scholarrpn.org
OpenRGATE
Repository & discoveryA free open-access repository and journal-discovery platform where finished work is deposited so it stays findable.
openrgate.org
JWDOI
Crossref DOI registrationRegisters Crossref DOIs and deposits article metadata, and gives journals a sponsored DOI prefix without joining Crossref directly — for journals, books, chapters and proceedings.
jwdoi.org
Research Wave
Research disseminationJournal articles and books with an emphasis on reach: open metadata, repository deposit and discovery feeds.
researchwave.orgSee every Journey & Wisdom product and platform · JW ecosystem map
How to build toward a genuine journal impact factor: step by step
Understand the official route
Accept that only Clarivate awards the Journal Impact Factor, and only to journals in the Web of Science Core Collection.
Meet the basic quality criteria
Have a verified ISSN, clear publisher details, peer review and ethics policies, and an editorial board with real, checkable affiliations.
Publish on time, every time
Release issues on the stated schedule for several years so evaluators see a stable record.
Register DOIs and clean metadata
Give every article a Crossref DOI with full metadata and references so citations can be linked.
Set up Google Scholar indexing correctly
Use one article per page, citation meta tags and text-based PDFs so citations are counted accurately.
Grow citations honestly
Focus on scope and quality, invite expert reviews, publish open access and help authors share their work.
Ban citation manipulation
Publish a policy against coercive citation and self-citation abuse, and brief reviewers and editors on it.
Label any interim metric exactly
If you show a calculated figure, name its source and state that it is not an official Clarivate JIF.
Refuse paid impact factor certificates
Do not buy scores or certificates from agencies that charge for evaluation or publish no data.
Apply for database evaluation when ready
Submit to Web of Science through Clarivate's free evaluation process, and to Scopus if suitable, once you have a strong track record.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I get an impact factor for my journal?
You cannot apply for an impact factor itself. You apply for evaluation by the Web of Science Core Collection. If Clarivate accepts the journal into SCIE, SSCI, AHCI or ESCI, it becomes eligible for a Journal Impact Factor in a later Journal Citation Reports release, once enough years of citation data exist. The evaluation is free.
Who gives the official journal impact factor?
Only Clarivate. It calculates the Journal Impact Factor and publishes it once a year in Journal Citation Reports. Any other organisation offering an "impact factor" is giving its own metric, which may or may not be meaningful. The official figure is always checked in JCR, not on a journal's website or certificate.
How is the impact factor calculated?
For a JCR year, Clarivate divides the citations received that year by items the journal published in the previous two years by the number of citable items (articles and reviews) published in those two years. Only citations from Web of Science Core Collection journals count, so citations elsewhere do not raise it.
Is an impact factor certificate genuine?
A certificate cannot prove or create an official impact factor; the Clarivate JIF is verified only in Journal Citation Reports. Certificates sold by agencies show that the agency assigned a number, nothing more. Treat any paid certificate with caution, and check whether the provider publishes its data and method.
How do I identify a fake impact factor?
Look for fees charged to journals, no published citation data, scores that rise every year, names imitating "Journal Impact Factor", and high values given to very new journals. A legitimate metric names its database, publishes its formula and can be checked independently. If you cannot find the figure at its claimed source, treat it as unverified.
How long does it take a new journal to get an impact factor?
Usually several years. A journal typically needs a stable publication record before applying to Web of Science, the evaluation itself can take many months, and a JIF needs years of indexed citation data after acceptance. Any offer to provide an official impact factor within weeks is not genuine.
Do ESCI journals have an impact factor?
Yes. Since the 2023 Journal Citation Reports release, Clarivate gives a Journal Impact Factor to all Web of Science Core Collection journals, including those in the Emerging Sources Citation Index and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. The JIF is now shown to one decimal place.
What is the difference between impact factor and CiteScore?
The Journal Impact Factor comes from Clarivate and Web of Science data with a two-year window. CiteScore comes from Elsevier and Scopus data with a four-year window that includes the current year, and counts more document types. They use different databases and formulas, so their values should never be compared directly.
Does Google Scholar give an impact factor?
No. Google Scholar Metrics publishes the h5-index and h5-median for qualifying publications, not an impact factor. Some journals calculate their own metric from Google Scholar citations; that is acceptable only when labelled as a calculated metric and clearly distinguished from the official Clarivate JIF.
Does JMVRA have an official impact factor?
No. JMVRA's 11.25 is a calculated metric based on citations from Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar. It is not an official Clarivate Journal Impact Factor (JCR). JMVRA is not indexed in Web of Science or Scopus, and its metrics page explains the basis of the figure.
How can I increase the impact factor of my journal?
Raise the quality and visibility of what you publish: stricter peer review, a focused scope, expert review articles, Crossref DOIs with references, correct Google Scholar setup, open access and author promotion. Never pressure authors to cite the journal; Clarivate suppresses journals with excessive self-citation or citation stacking.
Can I check a journal's impact factor for free?
Partly. The Web of Science Master Journal List shows free whether a journal is covered, and full JIF values are in Journal Citation Reports, often available through university libraries or a free registered account. CiteScore is free on Scopus Sources, SJR on the SCImago website, and h5-index on Google Scholar Metrics.
Is a high impact factor necessary for a good journal?
No. Many sound journals, especially new, regional or specialised ones, have no official metric yet. Judge a journal by its scope, peer review, editorial board, ethics, transparency of fees and archive. Metrics are one signal among several, and the DORA declaration warns against judging individual papers by journal metrics alone.
What is the five-year impact factor?
It is a Clarivate metric shown in Journal Citation Reports that uses a five-year window instead of two: citations in the JCR year to items published in the previous five years, divided by citable items in those years. It suits fields where papers are cited slowly over a longer period.
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