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h-index for journals

An h-index h indicates that a researcher or journal has published h articles that have been cited h or more times.

Though it was originally developed as a measure of the influence of a single scholar, the h-index can also be applied to a periodical.

For more information, see the H-index for authors page

Google Scholar's h5-index

Google Scholar now tracks journal h-index based on citations from all publications that are indexed in Google Scholar. Google Scholar reports the "h5-index"; that is, the h-index calculated using the most recent five years of a journal's publication history. Users can search for metrics on a specific title or view the top-rated journals in a language or subject area.

To find the h-index:

  • Go to Google Scholar and click Metrics at the top of the page.
  • View subject category data. Click a broad subject category at the left, e.g., Social Sciences.
  • Click Subcategories and make a selection. The top 20 journals in each subcategory are listed.
  • For detailed information on a single journal on the list, click the h5 number. It will list the individual papers that comprise the h-index as well as the journal's position within its subject category or categories.
  • You may also search for a specific journal at the top of the page and find its h-index. However, category ranking is not provided for journals outside the top 20.

Google Scholar generally finds more citing articles than Web of Science. Therefore, its h-indexes are usually higher. Different journals should not be compared unless the same source is used to generate the data for both.

Google Scholar Metrics Help Page