How to Identify Predatory and Hijacked Journals: Checklist

Predatory journals take publication fees from authors without providing genuine peer review, editing or long-term archiving, while hijacked journals are fake websites that copy the name and ISSN of a real journal to collect fees. You can spot most of them by checking how they solicit papers, when they ask for money, how fast they promise acceptance, and whether their ISSN, editors and indexing claims hold up. This guide gives you the warning signs, a ready checklist and the free tools you can use to verify a journal in minutes.

Why this matters for Indian researchers

Publication counts matter for Ph.D. requirements, faculty recruitment and promotion, and many students are under pressure to publish quickly. Predatory publishers exploit exactly that pressure. A paper published in such a journal can harm your profile, may not count with your institution, and is usually impossible to withdraw and republish elsewhere. Since the UGC-CARE list was discontinued in 2025, there is no central list to rely on, so the responsibility for checking now sits squarely with the author. Read our guide on the UGC-CARE list being discontinued for context.

Predatory journal or hijacked journal: the difference

Warning signs of a predatory journal

How they approach you

• Unsolicited emails praising your “esteemed work” and inviting a paper, often outside your field.
• Invitations to join an editorial board with no checking of your expertise.
• Pressure tactics: “last date tomorrow”, “only two slots left in this issue”.

Money

• A fee demanded at submission or before review.
• No fee schedule on the website, or one that appears only after you submit.
• Extra charges for “fast track”, “express publication” or a “certificate”.
• Acceptance linked to payment, such as “your paper is accepted, pay within 24 hours to confirm”.

Our guide on article processing charges explains what fair fee practice looks like.

Peer review and speed

• Promises of acceptance within one to three days.
• Acceptance with no reviewer comments at all, or comments that are generic and could apply to any paper.
• No published peer review policy, or one that is copied from elsewhere.

Scope and content

• An impossibly broad scope, for example law, engineering, medicine and management in one journal.
• Very large issues with hundreds of papers published every month.
• Published articles with obvious errors in language, formatting or citations.

Claims that do not check out

• Invented or misleading “impact factors” from unknown metric services.
• Logos of famous databases with no actual listing in them.
• An ISSN that belongs to a different title, or does not exist.
• Editorial board members who are unaware they are listed, or whose institutions cannot be traced.
• No physical address, or an address that does not match the claimed country.

Warning signs of a hijacked journal

• The web address differs slightly from the real journal’s site, for example an extra word, hyphen or a different domain ending.
• The site asks for fees even though the genuine journal does not charge authors.
• The “current issue” contains papers that bear no relation to the journal’s historic scope.
• Payment is requested to a personal bank account or through an unusual channel.
• The ISSN Portal record for the ISSN lists a different web address from the one you are on.

When in doubt, find the genuine journal through its publisher or a trusted database, not through a search engine advertisement or an email link, and compare the addresses.

Free tools to verify a journal

Two cautions. Absence from DOAJ does not automatically make a journal predatory, since many genuine and newer journals are not yet listed. And an ISSN alone is not a quality mark: it only identifies a publication. See our guide on what an ISSN is.

The five-minute verification checklist

1. Search the ISSN on the ISSN Portal. Does the title and web address match?
2. Open the editorial board page. Pick two names and find them on their institutions’ own websites.
3. Read the peer review policy. Does it name the review model and the possible decisions?
4. Find the fee page. Is the fee published, and is it charged only after acceptance?
5. Check any indexing claim directly on the database.
6. Read two published articles. Are they in scope and properly edited?
7. Look at the stated timelines. Do they allow real review?
8. Look for a publisher name, a full postal address and a working contact email on the journal’s domain.

If a journal fails two or more of these checks, move on.

What to do if you have already submitted

• Do not pay any further fee if you now have doubts.
• Withdraw in writing by email, stating clearly that you withdraw the manuscript and do not authorise publication. Keep a copy.
• If it is already published, ask in writing for removal. Some will comply, many will not. Consult your supervisor before resubmitting elsewhere, and disclose the history to the new journal’s editor.
• Report hijacked sites to the genuine journal’s publisher so they can warn others.

What a trustworthy new journal looks like

New journals cannot show long citation histories, but they can be transparent. The Lexfolio Journal of Law, Policy and Social Sciences (LJLPS) publishes its peer review policy, publication ethics and fee policy openly. It is double-blind peer reviewed, does not guarantee acceptance, and its first issue is free at every stage.

Frequently asked questions

Is every journal that charges a fee predatory?

No. Many legitimate open access journals charge article processing charges. The difference is that genuine journals publish the fee in advance, charge it only after acceptance through peer review, and never sell guaranteed acceptance.

How do I check if a journal is hijacked?

Look up its ISSN on the ISSN Portal and compare the official title and web address with the site you are using. Also reach the journal through its publisher’s website rather than an email link.

If a journal is not in DOAJ, should I avoid it?

Not necessarily. DOAJ listing is a good sign for an open access journal, but many genuine and new journals are not yet listed. Use the full checklist rather than any single test.

Can I withdraw a paper from a predatory journal?

You can and should withdraw in writing as soon as you have doubts, and before paying. Once published, removal depends on the publisher, so act early.