मस्यौदा अनुवाद। मूल हेर्नुहोस्: English
How do I check a journal's real impact factor?
The only authoritative source is Journal Citation Reports (JCR) by Clarivate, released annually in June. The 2026 release came out 17 June 2026 and covers 22,643 journals. Access requires institutional subscription, but the journal's own homepage usually displays it. If a journal claims an 'Impact Factor' but does not appear in JCR, the number is either from a different metric or fake.
Detail
Three legitimate ways
1. Journal Citation Reports directly — the source, requires institutional access. 2. The journal's own About page — reputable journals cite JCR figures verbatim, with the release year. 3. Web of Science database — if you have access, the JIF appears on the journal profile.
What to write off
Any figure from a site called 'Global Impact Factor', 'Universal Impact Factor', 'General Impact Factor', 'Cosmos Impact Factor' or similar is fake. These are commercial services unrelated to Clarivate. See our fake-impact-factor page for details.
Read the release year, not just the number
'Impact Factor 3.2' means nothing without the year. A journal's JIF is recalculated annually. The 2026 release reflects 2025 citation data. Some journals list Impact Factors from 2019 without noting the year.
What to do if no JIF exists
It's not automatically bad. Many legitimate journals are Scopus-indexed but not Web of Science-indexed. Check CiteScore instead — it covers about 28,000 active Scopus journals.