Citations—often termed as intellectual transactions, acknowledgment of intellectual debts, and conceptual association—are a link between the author’s current study and already published work. It not only provides credibility to the author’s work but also helps funders evaluate the impact of the research study. Citation indexes are maintained for information retrieval of both cited and citing work, facilitating the literature search process. It also helps authors in identifying the number of citations that their papers have received. Citation data is considered as a legitimate measure to rank authors, journals, and publishers. Researchers will learn: • Why and what authors need to cite? • Citation indexing and its significance • Selection criteria of international citation databases like WoS, Scopus, and Crossref • How can journals and publishers index in citation databases?