Journal indexing in research serves as a guide for relevant scholarly content and seeks to make the information widely available and easy to access. It can function as an information retrieval tool for libraries and archives. Journal indexing allows users to familiarize themselves with an article and decide if they want to read it further.

The process of inclusion in a journal index involves scrutiny and assessment to ensure that a journal meets basic scholarly publishing standards. A journal applies to a relevant journal indexing service, requesting its integration in their database. The journal indexing service will follow a thorough vetting process for industry standards, some of which are as follows:

• Scope of the journal (especially if the index is subject specific)
• Registration of its International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
• Commitment to a publishing schedule
• Provision of transparent Editorial Board information
• Provision of information on peer review, copyrights, ethics, etc
• Digital object identifiers (DOIs)
• Basic article-level metadata (persistent identifiers, copyright licenses, open abstracts, etc.).