LitRank Install
Version 1.9 · Chrome, Firefox & Edge · Free forever

Literature review for Google Scholar.

LitRank shows each journal's quartile on Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science, records your searches for a systematic review, and summarises any author profile in one click.

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New in 1.9: built for literature reviews

Released October 28, 2026. LitRank began as quartile badges on Google Scholar; version 1.9 follows your review from the first search to the Methods section.

A search log for systematic reviews

Records each search's database, exact query, filters, result count and date as you run it, on 38 databases and publisher websites. Exports a Methods paragraph, a table, a search appendix or CSV, with a PRISMA-S checklist.

Journal ranks beyond Google Scholar

SJR quartile, SJR score, country and open-access badges on Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect and OpenAlex results, on the sites you turn on — shown only where the journal can be identified exactly.

Analyse any Google Scholar profile

Press Analyse this author for a page-wide summary: citations, h-index, i10-index, first-author papers, the median SJR, the share of papers and of citations in each quartile, trends by year, top papers, keywords and subject areas.

Save from any publisher

Right-click any article page, or press Alt+Shift+L, to save it into a folder — and save the PDF you have open the same way. Alt+Shift+K logs the search on any results page.

What changed in 1.9.0

  • New name: LitRank: Literature Review for Google Scholar — it now does more than quartiles.
  • PDFs are saved one at a time. Bulk PDF download is gone: publishers block whole universities for automated downloading.
  • Licence: from 1.9.0 LitRank is free to use, all rights reserved. Earlier versions released under the GPL stay under it.

What Google Scholar leaves out

Scholar is the best place to find papers and the worst place to judge them. LitRank fills in the part that is missing, on the page you are already on.

Quartile at a glance

Q1 to Q4 on every result, from Scimago Journal Rank. One hue, stepped light to dark, so rank reads as rank rather than as colour-coding you have to learn.

Impact, and impact per year

The journal's SJR score and h-index — plus citations per year, because a 2004 paper with 400 citations is not outperforming a 2023 paper with 90.

Open access, before you click

Open-access and DOAJ indicators, a direct-PDF marker, and the country of publication — so you stop opening things you cannot read.

Filters Scholar does not have

Show only Q1 and Q2. Exclude preprints. Set a citation floor. Hide what you have already triaged. Sort by journal impact without losing Scholar's own order.

Folders, not one flat list

Save into named folders with their own icon and colour. One paper can sit in several. Each folder reports its quartile mix, median impact and top venues.

Out to your reference manager

BibTeX, CSV or JSON from any folder, with DOIs recovered where the page hid them. Fetch missing details from Crossref, sync a folder to your computer, and save PDFs one at a time through your own library access.

If more than one journal could fit, LitRank shows nothing rather than guessing.

Venue names are abbreviated and truncated, and a truncated name can match several real journals. An Unranked badge means the venue was not matched — never that it scored badly. The search log keeps the same rule: a search it cannot read exactly is marked as typed, and a count it cannot read is left blank rather than recorded as zero. A tool that quietly guesses is worse than one that admits the gap, because from the outside you cannot tell the two apart.

How it looks

Install it, and Google Scholar is simply better the next time you search. Turn on a database when you want it ranked or logged.

Every result, ranked

Every result carries its journal's quartile, its citation rate and whether the journal has moved quartile. The bar above filters by quartile, document type, citation count and open access; the bookmark beside each title saves it to a folder.

Google Scholar search results with a LitRank badge on each result showing the journal's SJR quartile, citations per year, open-access and PDF indicators and a country flag, and the LitRank filter bar above the results

The same ranks on Scopus and Web of Science

Turn a database on in the library and its results get the same badges: here Scopus, with each journal's quartile, SJR score, country and open-access status under the source title. Web of Science, ScienceDirect and OpenAlex work the same way.

Scopus search results for soil organic carbon and machine learning, sorted by citations, with LitRank badges under each journal name showing Q1, the SJR score, a country flag and open access

A search log for your systematic review

Each search is recorded as you run it: the database, the query exactly as the database ran it, the limits, the number of records and the date. Refined searches stay linked to the search they narrowed, database and website searches are counted separately as PRISMA 2020 asks, and the checklist shows which PRISMA-S items are still missing.

The LitRank search log in Report view: four searches, grouped by database — PubMed, Scopus with one earlier refinement step, Web of Science and IEEE Xplore — each with its exact query, limits, record count and capture status, and buttons to copy a Methods paragraph, copy a table, or download an appendix or CSV

Analyse any Google Scholar profile

Analyse this author reads the whole profile, one page at a time as you would, and draws the summary above the publication list. It describes where the work appeared; it ranks no one against anyone.

The LitRank profile panel on a Google Scholar author page: tiles for total citations, publications, h-index, first-author papers and median journal SJR, a journal-ranks bar showing the share of papers and of citations in Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 and unranked venues, and the top papers list

A library that opens on your reading

Four figures and three charts, worked out from the papers you have saved. The Q1 share is measured against ranked papers only: an unranked venue means the journal could not be identified, not that the paper is poor.

The LitRank library: papers saved, the share in Q1, median SJR and open access, charts of quartile mix, publication years and most-read journals, and a grid of coloured folder cards

Folders you can export

Each folder has its quartile mix, median SJR, publication years and venues. Export it as BibTeX, CSV or JSON for Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote, or fill in missing details from Crossref.

A LitRank folder opened, showing paper counts, median SJR, a publication-year histogram, a top-venues chart and the saved papers with their badges

The interface in every screenshot is the real extension. In the library, folder and search-log shots the papers and searches are invented, because a reading list is personal; the journals are real, so the quartiles and SJR figures are the genuine values LitRank looks up. The profile shown is a public Google Scholar profile.

Search log: 38 databases and publisher websites

Each one is off until you turn it on, and your browser asks before LitRank reads it. On any other site, right-click its results page and choose Log this search, or press Alt+Shift+K.

Databases · 22

Google ScholarPubMedWeb of ScienceScopusEmbaseProQuestEBSCOhostCochrane LibraryEngineering VillageCABI Digital LibraryJSTORCNKIDOAJTRIDLensOpenAlexSemantic ScholarCrossrefEurope PMCarXivbioRxivmedRxiv

Publisher websites · 16

ScienceDirectSpringerLinkNature.comWiley Online LibraryTaylor & Francis OnlineSAGE JournalsIEEE XploreMDPIFrontiersACS PublicationsASCE LibraryScienceEmerald InsightCambridge CoreOxford AcademicCanadian Science Publishing

Highlighted sites also get journal-rank badges: Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect and OpenAlex.

Three steps, then never again

Install

Chrome, Firefox or Edge. No account, no sign-up, no configuration screen. Badges appear on Google Scholar straight away.

Search as usual

Open Google Scholar for badges and the filter bar across 30+ country domains. To rank or log searches on Scopus, Web of Science or another database, turn it on in the library — your browser asks first.

Keep and report

Save papers into folders and log your searches, then export BibTeX for your reference manager or a Methods paragraph for your review.

There is no server

No account, no sync service, no analytics. Nothing you search for or save is transmitted to us, because there is nowhere for it to go. The only outbound request is to Crossref, and only when you press Fetch metadata.

You choose what it reads

The search log and database ranks are off until you turn them on, one site at a time, and your browser asks before LitRank reads each one. It never runs a search, clicks or downloads for you. Read the privacy policy.

Free, and staying free

No paid tier, no trial, no advertising, no data sale. Built by Matily. Free to use, all rights reserved; the public repository holds the documentation and issue tracker.

Questions people actually ask

What is LitRank?
LitRank is a free browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Edge, made for researchers, PhD students and librarians. It shows each journal's SJR quartile on Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect and OpenAlex, records your literature searches for a systematic or scoping review, and summarises any Google Scholar author profile. It has no account and no tracking, and everything stays on your device.
How do I see journal quartiles on Google Scholar?
Install LitRank and search Google Scholar as usual. Each result shows its journal's SJR quartile and score beside it; there is no account or setup.
Where does the ranking data come from?
From Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) 2025, which Scimago computes from Scopus data, with 2-year citedness from OpenAlex. Over 31,000 journals carry a quartile. The data ships inside the extension, so no lookup leaves your computer.
Does LitRank show the Journal Impact Factor?
No. LitRank shows SJR quartiles — Scimago Journal Rank — which is a different metric on a different scale from a different provider. Journal Impact Factor is a Clarivate metric published in Journal Citation Reports, and its data cannot be redistributed in a free extension. If you specifically need JIF, LitRank is not the right tool.
How does LitRank help with PRISMA-S reporting?
It records each search's database, exact query, filters, result count and date as you run it, then exports a Methods paragraph and a search appendix and lists which PRISMA-S items are still missing. Database and website searches are counted separately, as PRISMA 2020 asks.
Does the search log send my searches anywhere?
No. It reads the results page you are already looking at and keeps the record in your browser. It never runs searches, clicks or downloads for you.
Which databases does the search log support?
38 databases and publisher websites, including Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, ProQuest, EBSCOhost and Cochrane Library. Each is off until you turn it on. On any other site, right-click the results page and choose Log this search, or press Alt+Shift+K.
Does it work with my university library login?
Yes. PDFs are saved through your own browser session, and the search log and badges work on databases reached through your library's proxy address once you add it in the library.
What does the profile analysis show?
Total citations, h-index, i10-index, first-author papers, the median SJR of the journals, the share of papers and citations in each quartile, the citation trend, the most cited papers, keywords and subject areas. It is worked out in your browser from what the profile shows.
Why does a paper show “Unranked”?
Because the venue could not be matched with confidence — not because it scored badly. Usually the venue is not a journal at all (preprints, theses and book chapters carry no quartile), or the name was truncated past the point where it is still unique. Where more than one journal could fit, LitRank shows no badge rather than guessing. The badge tells you which case you are looking at.
Why do conference papers have no quartile?
Quartiles are assigned to journals, not to conference proceedings. Rather than invent a rank for a conference, LitRank shows its impact score and h-index instead.
Is my reading list stored in the cloud?
No. Your papers, folders and search log live in your browser's local storage. There is no account, no server and no sync service. You can export a folder or sync it to a directory on your own computer whenever you like, but nothing leaves your machine unless you ask it to.
Can I use it with Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote?
Yes. Export any folder as BibTeX, CSV or JSON and import it. Records carry a DOI wherever one could be recovered, so your reference manager can complete anything the page did not show.
Can LitRank download PDFs in bulk?
No. PDFs are saved one at a time, through your own library access. Bulk PDF download was removed in version 1.9.0 because publishers block whole universities for automated downloading.
Is LitRank free?
Yes. There is no paid tier, no trial and no advertising, and none is planned. It is built by Matily.
Is LitRank open source?
No. From version 1.9.0 LitRank is free to use, all rights reserved: install it and use it for any purpose, but do not copy, modify or redistribute it. Copies of earlier versions released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 remain under it. The documentation in the public repository is licensed CC BY 4.0.
Is LitRank affiliated with Google, Clarivate or Elsevier?
No. LitRank is an independent extension. Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect and the other names mentioned are trademarks of their respective owners.

Stop judging papers by citation count alone.

Install it once. The next time you search Google Scholar, Scopus or Web of Science, you will know where everything was published — and have the record of how you searched.

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