Metadata mega mess in Google Scholar

This paper provides a review of recent developments in Google Scholar and concludes that GS is especially inappropriate for bibliometric searches, for evaluating the publishing performance and impact of researchers and journals.

Abstract

Purpose Google Scholar (GS) has shed the beta label on the fifth anniversary of launching its service. This paper aims to address this issue. Design/methodology/approach As good as GS is – through its keyword search option – to find information about tens of millions of documents, many of them in open access full text format, it is as bad for metadata‐based searching when, beyond keywords in the title, abstract, descriptor and/or full text, the searcher also has to use author name, journal title and/or publication year in specifying the query. This paper provides a review of recent developments in Google Scholar. Findings GS is especially inappropriate for bibliometric searches, for evaluating the publishing performance and impact of researchers and journals. Originality/value Even if the clean up of Google Scholar accelerates it should not be forgotten that those evaluations of individuals and journals that have been done based on Google Scholar in the past few years have grossly handicapped many authors and journals whose name was replaced by phantom entries.