Google Scholar Indexation for Academic Journals

In the digital age, Google Scholar has emerged as a widely used search engine for academic research. It indexed millions of articles, theses, books, conference papers, and patents. It provides access to millions of documents globally and covers disciplines ranging from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)  to social sciences and humanities. A study published in Scientometrics revealed that Google Scholar now contains over 389 million indexed records, making it one of the most extensive scholarly indexing platforms available. 

For academic journal publishers, achieving indexation on Google Scholar is more than just a milestone as it gives a gateway to the journals to improve their visibility, citation rates, and academic credibility.

In this Blog we have highlighted the complexities of Google Scholar indexation for an academic journal, why it matters, and how journals can successfully navigate the entire process.

 

What is Google Scholar Indexation?

Google Scholar includes scholarly articles from a wide variety of sources in all fields of research, all languages, all countries, and over all time periods disciplines. Indexation on this platform allows academic articles, conference papers, theses, books, and other research outputs to become discoverable by a global audience. Unlike traditional databases, Google Scholar employs automated algorithms to crawl and index academic content from the web.

Why is Google Scholar Indexation Important for Academic Journals?

Google Scholar includes scholarly articles from various sources in all research fields, languages, countries, and time periods. Indexing in Google Scholar is a significant milestone for an academic journal for the following reasons.

 

• Google Scholar is a widely used search engine that significantly boosts the visibility of academic journal content by ensuring that indexed articles are more likely to appear in search results. 
• Data is available in multiple languages and regions and is searched globally, enabling academic journals to expand their reach and enhance the global visibility of their articles through Google Scholar indexing.
• Studies indicate that articles indexed in Google Scholar tend to receive more citations due to their easy accessibility. Being indexed in Google Scholar also enhances connectivity by utilizing the “Cited By” feature, which generates a list of articles and documents that reference the indexed content, creating valuable links to related literature. Moreover, it highlights past academic articles, as Google Scholar prioritizes highly cited works in its search results, displaying them more prominently.
• Being indexed signals that a journal adheres to certain quality standards, enhancing its reputation in the academic community.
• True accessibility isn’t achieved merely by offering free content; it requires ensuring that academic articles are easily discoverable online. Therefore, for authors publishing open-access (OA) articles in academic journals, Google Scholar indexing is particularly crucial. Because almost every researcher has access to Google Scholar, it eliminates this barrier and makes the academic article more discoverable for the audience.

 

Inclusion Guidelines for Academic Journals in Google Scholar

Eligibility Criteria for the Content 

If the collection of research papers in an academic journal meets two basic requirements, it can be indexed in Google Scholar. Here are the two essential criteria:

 

1. The academic journal’s website must primarily host scholarly work, such as journal papers, conference papers, technical reports, dissertations, or pre-prints. Content like news articles, book reviews, or editorials is not suitable. If the documents are larger than 5MB, e.g., books or lengthy dissertations, they should be uploaded to Google Book Search, as Google Scholar automatically includes scholarly works from there.
2. Readers should be able to easily access the full text or author-written abstracts of academic articles when they click on the links in Google search results. The site shouldn’t require users to sign in, accept terms, close ads, or scroll to see the abstract. Websites that show login screens, errors, or only basic details without abstracts won’t qualify for inclusion in Google Scholar.

Crawl Guidelines:

Google Scholar uses automated crawlers to index content from academic journals, making it essential for websites to have a structure that allows easy discovery and periodic updates of article URLs. Files submitted for indexing must be in HTML or PDF format, with PDFs containing searchable text. Larger files or scanned documents can be uploaded to Google Book Search for inclusion, as Google Scholar pulls relevant content from there.

A clear browse interface is crucial for helping crawlers locate articles. Smaller collections can list all articles on a single HTML page with direct links to full-text PDFs, while larger journals should organize articles by publication date or entry date to improve accessibility. Journals with extensive collections are advised to create an additional interface for recently added articles to ensure timely indexing. Navigation methods like Flash or JavaScript should be avoided, as they can hinder crawler functionality.

Consistent website availability is vital for maintaining indexing. Temporary or permanent errors should be handled using appropriate HTTP codes, and any changes to article URLs must include proper redirects to ensure users and crawlers can access the updated location. The robots.txt file should allow access to article pages while blocking irrelevant sections like shopping carts or search forms. Following these guidelines increases the visibility and discoverability of academic content on Google Scholar.

Technical Indexing Guidelines

By visiting the Google Scholar website, we retrieve the following guidelines for the indexation of academic journals. It includes emphasizing correct bibliographic data presentation for automated parsers. Each article or abstract must be in a separate HTML or PDF file with a unique URL. Meta-tags like citation_title, citation_author, and citation_publication_date are essential for inclusion, while Dublin Core tags should be a last resort. These meta-tags must be formatted correctly, listing authors without affiliations and providing complete citation details for journal or conference papers. Properly linking PDF files to corresponding HTML abstracts through tags like citation_pdf_url is crucial to avoid processing errors.

Following example is taken directly from the Google Scholar website to ensure the better understanding of the meta tags for the readers. 

<meta name=”citation_title” content=”The testis isoform of the phosphorylase kinase catalytic subunit (PhK-T) plays a critical role in regulation of glycogen mobilization in developing lung”>

<meta name=”citation_author” content=”Liu, Li”>

<meta name=”citation_author” content=”Rannels, Stephen R.”>

<meta name=”citation_author” content=”Falconieri, Mary”>

<meta name=”citation_author” content=”Phillips, Karen S.”>

<meta name=”citation_author” content=”Wolpert, Ellen B.”>

<meta name=”citation_author” content=”Weaver, Timothy E.”>

<meta name=”citation_publication_date” content=”1996/05/17″>

<meta name=”citation_journal_title” content=”Journal of Biological Chemistry”>

<meta name=”citation_volume” content=”271″>

<meta name=”citation_issue” content=”20″>

<meta name=”citation_firstpage” content=”11761″>

<meta name=”citation_lastpage” content=”11766″>

<meta name=”citation_pdf_url” content=”http://www.example.com/content/271/20/11761.full.pdf”>

 

For content without meta-tags, specific visual layouts must be followed. The title should be the largest text on the page (minimum 24 pt.), with authors listed nearby in a slightly smaller font. Fonts for section headings or repository names must be smaller than the authors’ and title to prevent misidentification. Explicit bibliographic citations must be included either in the header or footer of the first page. Using clear, consistent formatting ensures articles are correctly indexed and appear prominently in search results.

By adhering to these guidelines,  academic publishers can ensure better discoverability and accuracy for their articles on Google Scholar, facilitating citations and academic recognition.

 

How to Verify Google Scholar Indexing for Academic Journal Content

To check if Google Scholar is indexing your journal articles, you can visit scholar.google.com and search for the website of your journal. Look up the titles of some articles from your journal to see if they appear in the search results. If none of your articles show up, Google Scholar might not be indexing your content. In this case, you should review the “Inclusion Guidelines for Webmasters” to understand why. If only some of your articles are indexed, it could be because of missing criteria or mistakes on certain article pages. It might also be because Google Scholar takes time to index new websites and articles, as its crawlers work slower than Google’s.

Tips for Website Migration and Google Scholar Indexing

If your journal is moving to a new hosting platform with different article URLs, it’s important to make sure all your old article links point to the new ones. You should set up permanent redirects (HTTP 301s) to send users from the old URLs to the new ones.

To avoid interruptions, keep your old website live while you prepare the new one. Once the new site is ready, set up the redirects and update the Domain Name System (DNS) to point to the new server before removing the old site. If you’re unsure about how to do this, contact your hosting providers for assistance. After setting up the redirects, keep in mind that updates to articles in Google Scholar may take 6 to 9 months or longer, so be patient.