Hijacked medical journals and the risk to scholarly integrity: a web analytics study of prevalence, traffic channels, and geographic origins of traffic

OBJECTIVES: The integrity of research and science is increasingly under threat from questionable journals. In particular, hijacked journals rapidly expand, propagating scam-based, non-peer-reviewed publications. While the academic literature offers discussions, developed methodologies, and block lists to combat these fraudulent journals, the most prevalent hijacked journals and their primary distribution channels remain ambiguous. METHODS: To bridge this knowledge gap, the current study utilized a list of 380 previously detected hijacked journals and the web analytics platform Semrush to identify the most visited hijacked journals and their primary channels for attracting web traffic. This research first analyzes hijacked journals across various fields and then focuses specifically on hijacked medical journals. RESULTS: Our findings demonstrate that over 50 % of previously detected hijacked journals are active, primarily attracting researchers via email, search engines, and artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Furthermore, the majority of visitors to these journal websites originate from India. The results for medical journals align with these overall trends. CONCLUSIONS: Addressing the significant problem these questionable journals pose necessitates implementing legal action and technological solutions.