Google starts ranking journals - Web Exclusive Article - Significance Magazine

"In a blog posted on April Fool's Day, Google announced a new feature to its Scholar service. This was no prank. It was the genuine debut of a new tool called Google Scholar Metrics....Another advantage of Scholar Metrics is its inclusion of web repositories like [RePEc,] the Social Science Research Network and arXiv, where authors can make manuscripts or published articles available to the web community at no cost to themselves or their readers. By making it into the top 10 of the h-index ranking, these repositories demonstrate the importance of open access and early views in strengthening a publication's sway...."