Predatory publishers put their own profit above the research ethics and the principles of publishing results, so they usually charge for publication in so-called gold open access.
Most common practices:
the journal titles are very similar to the prestigious ones, the difference between them is just one added word. It is quite common to include terms such as World, Global, International, etc.
usually these journals do not cover any specific discipline or scientific subject, they rather represent a general profile, boasting multidisciplinarity;
submitted articles are accepted for publication very quickly, often within less than a month, without any reviewer comments;
in most cases, the editors of these periodicals do not specify the fee for publishing articles on their websites; they send this information directly to the author by e-mail. A large-scale promotional campaign is also being carried out in the same way;
a journal on its website (often very similar to the journal it is pretending to be) does not contain basic information, e.g. a list of reviewers or the address of the editorial office. Contact email is most often a Gmail address.
Predatory journals are defined as le Salon des Refusés due to the fact that they accept papers rejected by other publishers, such as Elsevier, Wiley, Sage, Taylor & Francis, Oxford University Press.
