An invitation email lands, the journal is unfamiliar, and its homepage answers the obvious question with a wall of logos: PubMed, Crossref, Google Scholar, Index Copernicus, ResearchBib, and an "SJIF Impact Factor" with a number beside it.
Nine badges, presented as nine votes of confidence. They are not the same kind of statement. One is an admission decision recorded in a public register. One is a paid listing. One means a crawler visited.
This post grades each badge, gives the register that settles it, then runs the test on Directive Publications — including the rows that do not flatter us.
Three species of claim are hiding inside one wall of logos
A selection decision. A named committee applied published criteria and admitted the journal. The yes is recorded in a searchable list.
A registration or a crawl. The publisher signed up for infrastructure, or made its pages machine-readable, and software did the rest.
A purchase or a self-listing. The journal asked to be listed and the service listed it, sometimes for a fee.
If you cannot find the journal in the service's own register, the logo is decoration
A logo on a journal's site is an image file on a page that journal controls: a claim, not evidence. Any service running a real selection process publishes the titles it has admitted. Go there and search.
The decoder: twelve badges, who decides admission, and the register that settles it
The rule: a badge is worth exactly as much as the entry you can find for that journal in the service's own register, and nothing more.
| Badge as shown | What it actually is, and who admits | Where you confirm one journal | Claim type | Our status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indexed in PubMed | A search interface, not a list a journal joins: content arrives through MEDLINE selection or a PMC deposit agreement. | NLM Catalog journals search | SELECTION DECISION | NOT HELD |
| MEDLINE indexed | The subset the National Library of Medicine selects, reviewed on application by its Literature Selection Technical Review Committee. | The same NLM Catalog record, which states whether the title is currently indexed | SELECTION DECISION | NOT HELD |
| PubMed Central, or PMC | That library's full-text archive: application, plus scientific and technical evaluation, before deposit. | PMC journal list, by title | SELECTION DECISION | NOT HELD |
| Indexed in Scopus | Elsevier's citation database; an independent Content Selection and Advisory Board assesses titles against published criteria and can discontinue coverage. | The free source title list Elsevier publishes on its own Scopus content page, reached from its site; scopus.com itself asks you to sign in | SELECTION DECISION | NOT HELD |
| Web of Science, or SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, ESCI | Clarivate's editorial evaluation against published criteria, across several collections the logo does not distinguish. | Clarivate's Master Journal List, reached from its own site; the entry names the collection | SELECTION DECISION | NOT HELD |
| DOAJ | Free to apply to; DOAJ editors review the application against published criteria, and titles can be removed. | DOAJ journal search | SELECTION DECISION | NOT LISTED. Eligible to apply, which is not a listing |
| Crossref member, or "DOIs assigned" | A paid membership that registers identifiers and obliges metadata deposit, with no evaluation of what sits behind them. | Crossref search, or a prefix at api.crossref.org/prefixes/10.xxxxx | CRAWL OR REGISTRATION | HELD. Member, prefix 10.52338 — registration, not indexing |
| ISSN registered, or a ROAD entry | An identifier assigned on request by a national ISSN centre, or by the ISSN International Centre where there is none; ROAD is the subset of that register covering open access scholarly resources. | ISSN Portal and ROAD | CRAWL OR REGISTRATION | HELD where assigned. An identifier, not a verdict |
| Indexed in Google Scholar | A crawler that takes in what meets its published content and technical guidelines, repositories and preprints included. | No per-journal register exists; search Scholar for exact article titles | CRAWL OR REGISTRATION | HELD as retrievability only; no admission decision exists |
| In OpenAlex, or "metadata harvested" | An open database built by ingesting Crossref deposits and OAI-PMH feeds: a source record is generated, not granted. | OpenAlex sources search | CRAWL OR REGISTRATION | HELD. Records appear because metadata is exposed |
| Directory listings: Index Copernicus, ResearchBib | Directories a journal enters by submitting its own details or completing the service's own questionnaire; check that service's application page for what it charges, if anything. | Each service's own browse page, reached from its homepage | PURCHASE OR SELF-LISTING | NOT LISTED |
| Metric badges with a number: SJIF, ICV, "Cosmos", "Global Impact Factor" | Services a publisher applies to, which return a figure calculated by their own method; check that service's own pages for what the evaluation costs, if anything. | Ask the service who calculates the number, from which citation data, and whether it can be inspected. Where the service publishes no register, there is nothing to check | PURCHASE OR SELF-LISTING | NOT HELD. No figure of this kind appears on this site |
Check it yourself in thirty seconds
- Find the ISSN on the journal's own page — masthead, sidebar or footer.
- Search that ISSN in the register in column three; use the exact title if it returns nothing.
- If the title is absent, the badge is decoration.
Selection decisions you can confirm in one click
The first six rows carry weight: a body other than the journal made the decision and published it.
"Indexed in PubMed" is a badge worth reading twice. PubMed is a search interface over several collections, not something a journal joins, so one PMC deposit made under a funder mandate puts a journal's name into PubMed results.
Currency matters too. Scopus and DOAJ both remove titles on re-review, so check the current list, not a screenshot.
Crossref, DOIs and OAI-PMH are plumbing, not indexing — and that includes ours
Crossref membership means an annual fee, registered DOIs and metadata deposited to a standard. It gives your article a persistent link, and lets a publisher deposit an update so a correction is linked to the record it corrects — through Crossmark, which members opt into rather than receive automatically. It assesses nothing.
The same goes for OAI-PMH, an ISSN and JATS XML. These are the pipes. We hold them — ISSNs where they have been assigned — and grade ourselves in the words the table applies to everyone: registration, not indexing.
"Google Scholar indexed" and "in OpenAlex" describe a crawler's behaviour
Google Scholar crawls. If a site meets its published content and technical guidelines the articles turn up, as do repositories and preprints — a plain sign that inclusion is not a quality signal.
OpenAlex arrives by another route, ingesting Crossref deposits and metadata feeds: a source record exists because metadata was published, not because anyone chose the journal.
Directories and purchased metric badges: read the service's own application and fee page
Grade these rows by what the service says about itself. A listing entered by submitting the journal's own details or a questionnaire tells you the journal applied, and nothing about peer review. A classification, not an accusation.
Ask of any metric badge which organisation calculates the figure, from which citation data, and whether that data can be inspected. What established metrics measure is covered in impact factor, CiteScore and h-index.
Run the decoder on Directive Publications: four we hold, six we do not
Column five is already filled in. We hold four things, all of them registration or crawl: Crossref membership under prefix 10.52338, an ISSN where one is assigned, metadata exposed over OAI-PMH and so present in OpenAlex, and articles retrievable in Google Scholar.
We are not in PubMed, MEDLINE or PMC, not in Scopus or Web of Science, and not listed in DOAJ. Those rows read NOT HELD and NOT LISTED, with no "yet" attached: a decision not made is not a weaker version of one that has been.
For your paper that means a registered DOI, a CC BY 4.0 licence, structured metadata and findability through Scholar and OpenAlex — and no PubMed record. If your promotion framework names Scopus or Web of Science, submit elsewhere.
One disclosure, since this post asks you to test us. Until [DATE], journal sites in this group displayed a PubMed indexing logo, third-party index logos including Cosmos, ESJI and Publons, and an Impact Factor figure. Every one of those fails the table above. They came down on [DATE], and the review of the remaining sites is not finished.
Three replies you can send when the badges do not survive the check
None has to be hostile. A real listing survives all three.
When a selection badge is not in the register:
Thank you for the invitation. Your homepage displays [service]. I searched [register] by your ISSN [xxxx-xxxx] and did not find the journal. Could you point me to the record?
When infrastructure is presented as indexing:
Your indexing section lists Crossref and Google Scholar. I read those as DOI registration and crawler coverage, not admission to a selective database. Which selective databases has the journal been admitted to, and when?
When a metric badge carries a number:
The site shows [name] with a value beside it. Which organisation calculates that figure, from which citation data, and is that data publicly available? My institution recognises [Scopus / Web of Science] only.
A screenshot offered in place of a register entry is itself an answer.
Licensing is set out on the Open Access page. See also how to identify a predatory journal and digital preservation in scholarly publishing, where preservation logos raise the same question.