Every week, researchers pay publication fees to journals that claim to be Scopus-indexed and are not. The claim appears on the journal's website, in its email invitations, sometimes even on a convincing-looking certificate. None of that is evidence. Indexing is a fact you can verify at the source — and you should, every single time, even when a colleague recommends the journal.
Why this matters more than it seems
A paper published in a journal that falsely claims indexing does not count where you need it to count: promotions, PhD requirements, institutional rankings. Worse, it sits on your CV where every future committee can see it. The money is the smallest thing you lose.
The only check that counts: the Scopus source list
Scopus is a database owned by Elsevier, and it publishes its list of indexed titles. Anyone can check it — no subscription needed.
- Go to the Scopus Sources page — scopus.com/sources. This is the authoritative list. Not a blog, not an aggregator site, not the journal's own site.
- Search by ISSN, not by name. Predatory journals often use names nearly identical to legitimate ones (one word different, or the same name with "International" added). The ISSN is unique. Get it from the journal's website and search for exactly that.
- Check the coverage years. A journal can be discontinued from Scopus and still claim indexing. The source record shows coverage — if it says "coverage ended 2023," papers you publish there now are not indexed.
- Cross-check the publisher. The Scopus record names the publisher. If the journal's website names a different one, you may be looking at a hijacked journal — a fake website impersonating a legitimate title. This is more common than most researchers believe.
Three claims that mean nothing
- "Indexed in Scopus (under evaluation)" — evaluation is not indexing. Papers published during "evaluation" are not in Scopus.
- A Scopus logo on the journal's website — logos are copy-paste. Only the source list is proof.
- "Impact factor" from unfamiliar agencies — the Journal Impact Factor comes from Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports. "Global Impact Factor," "Universal Impact Factor" and similar are inventions sold to journals.
For Web of Science, the same discipline applies
Use Clarivate's Master Journal List (mjl.clarivate.com) and search by ISSN. The same rules about coverage and publisher apply.
The five-minute habit
Before you format a single reference for a journal: ISSN into the Scopus source list, coverage years checked, publisher matched. Five minutes, every time. It is the cheapest insurance in academic publishing.
If you want a second pair of eyes on a journal before you commit a manuscript to it, journal verification is part of our publication support — and we will tell you plainly if the journal is not what it claims.