Quick answer: Over the years, a journal builds citation standing by publishing research that is truly relevant, keeping metadata complete and accurate for every article, sustaining an editorial board and author pool that are international and diverse, and tracking impact honestly — while steering clear of self-citation manipulation, coordinated citation exchanges and citation stacking.
The Foundation
Publish relevant research
Citations come from work that truly benefits a living field of research, and no later step can make up for that.
Strong titles & abstracts
Every article, not only the standout ones, gains from a clear title and an abstract that describes it accurately.
Complete metadata
Accurate for every article, because incomplete records quietly break citation linking.
Reach & Discoverability
Register a DOI for each article, make sure Google Scholar and suitable repositories can find your content, and treat indexing eligibility — see our indexing roadmap — as a natural result of steady quality rather than a target chased directly.
Diversity Among International Authors & Editors
An editorial board and author pool that are varied geographically and institutionally naturally broaden the journal's readership and citation network, and selective databases explicitly assess this factor. Inviting reviewers and editors from a range of regions helps reflect the true breadth of a field.
What to Avoid
Selective indexes look specifically for citation-manipulation patterns, and being detected can put a journal's standing or coverage entirely at risk — no version of this is worth that danger.
Tracking Impact as Time Passes
Look over citation and metadata reports at intervals, fix errors as you find them, and regard growth in impact as a multi-year result of steady editorial quality instead of a figure to steer directly.
Submit Your Paper to JMVRA
Open access and peer-reviewed, with Crossref DOI support so that citations can be linked.
Submit Paper Online Author Citation GuideCommon Search Terms
Practical Tips for Editors Raising a Journal's Influence
A journal's citations reflect the usefulness of what it publishes over time. Editors can support this by working steadily on quality and reach rather than hunting for quick numbers.
- Commission needed topics. Identify questions that readers in your field keep asking and invite authors able to answer them well. Timely, useful articles attract attention more reliably than routine submissions.
- Broaden your reviewer pool. Recruit reviewers from different institutions and regions so that evaluation is fresh and varied. Diverse reviewers also lead to a more varied and interesting set of authors.
- Improve article pages. Provide clear abstracts, keywords, reference lists and citation instructions on every article page. Readers cite more readily when the correct format is easy to copy.
- Encourage corrections and updates. Welcome notes that correct or extend published work. A journal that handles errors openly earns respect and a reputation for reliability.
- Never pressure authors to cite. Do not ask authors to add references to your own journal as a condition of acceptance. Coercive citation harms scholarship and can seriously damage the journal's standing.
Raise a journal's influence by publishing useful work and presenting it well, never by pressuring authors or manipulating references.
What Authors Can Do
Write useful papers
Well-posed questions and results others can reuse.
Share data and code
Other researchers build on them and cite them.
Get a DOI
Makes tracking citations dependable.
Present at events
Reach the researchers in your field.
Following Citations Over Time
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| Article citations | Google Scholar “Cited by” |
| Journal-level trends | OpenAlex works and citation counts |
| DOI-based links | Crossref cited-by (for members who use it) |
Questions Researchers Often Ask
How does a journal's citation growth differ from an author's own citation strategy?
A journal must think about editorial quality in each issue and consistent metadata for every article — the whole publication taken together.
Does having a diverse editorial board really influence citations?
Yes — selective databases evaluate it as a factor, and it tends to draw a wider range of submissions and readers.
What is citation stacking, and why does it cause problems?
An arranged scheme to inflate citation metrics artificially; it breaches citation integrity and can harm a journal's standing.
How can a journal run special issues without risking citation manipulation?
Hold special issues to the same standard of peer review as regular ones, and steer clear of schemes meant to lift short-term counts.
How much self-citation is reasonable for a journal?
Only genuine, relevant continuity of research — never a deliberate pattern to inflate metrics, which databases specifically watch for.
Is it ethical for editors to request that authors cite their journal?
Not if the request is coercive or unrelated to the paper; that counts as citation manipulation.
Does open access raise citation numbers?
Open access widens availability, which can help, but relevance matters most.
Key References
What This Guide Covers
At-a-Glance Checklist
- Clear scopeReaders know what they will find
- References submittedTo enable citation linking
- Discovery verifiedIn Scholar and OpenAlex
- No forced citingAuthors are never required to cite the journal
- Impact followedUsing honest metrics
A Quick Look at JMVRA Citation Metrics
The impact factor is a journal-level measure only, whereas the h-index can describe a journal or an author. The figures are taken from the journal’s Google Scholar profile as it stood on 30 Sep 2026, so open it to verify them.
Ready to Publish? Submit to JMVRA
JMVRA is aligned with UGC's Suggested Parameters for Choosing Peer-Reviewed Journals.
JMVRA is a Transparent, Peer-Reviewed, Open Access Journal (Refereed Journal). Following the discontinuation of the UGC and UGC-CARE journal listing, and in alignment with the latest UGC-CARE recommendations and guidelines, JMVRA is aligned with UGC’s Suggested Parameters for Choosing Peer-Reviewed Journals.
Helpful pages on jmvra.org
Key Terms
Subjects and search phrases this article addresses.
Related Reading
Further reading on the same theme from the JMVRA blog.
Keep Reading on the JMVRA Blog
This guide belongs to the JMVRA journal blog, which offers practical advice on publishing, indexing, metrics and research integrity, written to be checkable instead of promotional.