Publication delay is one of the inherent characters in the publication process of journals. In this paper, the influence of publication delay on the journals' impact factor was investigated. Basing on the inter-citation data among journals, we found that the publication delay of one journal can not only reduce the impact factor of itself and lower it's ranking in the journal group, but also bring negative disturbances on the impact factor and ranking of other journals in the group. The phenomena may conceal the true science significance of journals in some extent, which should be paid more attentions for the editors to reduce the publication delay.
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