Masquerade of authority: hijacked journals are gaining more credibility than original ones-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

Masquerade of authority: hijacked journals are gaining more credibility than original ones

Published:2024-07-03 Issue:3 Volume:11 Page:235-239
ISSN:2194-802X
Container-title:Diagnosis
language:en
Short-container-title:

Author:

Hegedűs Mihály¹^ORCID,Dadkhah Mehdi²^ORCID,Dávid Lóránt D.³⁴⁵^ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Department of Finance and Accounting , Tomori Pál College , Budapest , Hungary

2. Amrita School of Engineering , Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham , Amritapuri , Kerala , India

3. John von Neumann University , Faculty of Economics and Business , John von Neumann University , Kecskemét , Department of Tourism and Hospitality , Kecskemét , Hungary

4. Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE) , Institute of Rural Development and Sustainable Economy , Department of Sustainable Tourism , Gödöllő , Hungary

5. Eötvös Loránd University , Faculty of Social Sciences , Savaria University Centre , Savaria Department of Business Economics , Szombathely , Hungary

Abstract

Abstract At the moment, the academic world is faced with various challenges that negatively impact science integrity. One is hijacked journals, a second, inauthentic website for indexed legitimate journals, managed by cybercriminals. These journals publish any manuscript by charging authors and pose a risk to scientific integrity. This piece compares a journal’s original and hijacked versions regarding authority in search engines. A list of 16 medical journals, along with their hijacked versions, has been collected. The MOZ Domain Authority has been used to check the authority of both original and hijacked journals, and the results have been discussed. It indicates that hijacked journals are gaining more credibility than original ones. This should alarm academia and highlights a need for serious action against hijacked journals. The related policies should be planned, and tools should be developed to support easy detection of hijacked journals. On the publishers’ side, the visibility of journals’ websites must be enhanced to address this issue.

Funder

Flagship Research Groups Programme of the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Publisher

Walter de Gruyter GmbH

Link

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/dx-2024-0082/pdf

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