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Google Scholar citations and Google Web/URL citations: A multi‐discipline exploratory analysis

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  • Kayvan Kousha
  • Mike Thelwall

Abstract

We use a new data gathering method, “Web/URL citation,” Web/URL and Google Scholar to compare traditional and Web‐based citation patterns across multiple disciplines (biology, chemistry, physics, computing, sociology, economics, psychology, and education) based upon a sample of 1,650 articles from 108 open access (OA) journals published in 2001. A Web/URL citation of an online journal article is a Web mention of its title, URL, or both. For each discipline, except psychology, we found significant correlations between Thomson Scientific (formerly Thomson ISI, here: ISI) citations and both Google Scholar and Google Web/URL citations. Google Scholar citations correlated more highly with ISI citations than did Google Web/URL citations, indicating that the Web/URL method measures a broader type of citation phenomenon. Google Scholar citations were more numerous than ISI citations in computer science and the four social science disciplines, suggesting that Google Scholar is more comprehensive for social sciences and perhaps also when conference articles are valued and published online. We also found large disciplinary differences in the percentage overlap between ISI and Google Scholar citation sources. Finally, although we found many significant trends, there were also numerous exceptions, suggesting that replacing traditional citation sources with the Web or Google Scholar for research impact calculations would be problematic.

Suggested Citation

  • Kayvan Kousha & Mike Thelwall, 2007. "Google Scholar citations and Google Web/URL citations: A multi‐discipline exploratory analysis," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(7), pages 1055-1065, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jamist:v:58:y:2007:i:7:p:1055-1065
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.20584
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    Cited by:

    1. Steffen Wendzel & Cédric Lévy-Bencheton & Luca Caviglione, 2020. "Not all areas are equal: analysis of citations in information security research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(1), pages 267-286, January.
    2. Ma, Chao & Li, Yiwei & Guo, Feng & Si, Kao, 2019. "The citation trap: Papers published at year-end receive systematically fewer citations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 667-687.
    3. Tomislav Hengl & Budiman Minasny & Michael Gould, 2009. "A geostatistical analysis of geostatistics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 80(2), pages 491-514, August.
    4. Yutao Sun & Belle Selene Xia, 2016. "The scholarly communication of economic knowledge: a citation analysis of Google Scholar," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 1965-1978, December.
    5. Chan, Ho Fai & Bodiuzzman, Sohel Md & Torgler, Benno, 2020. "The power of social cues in the battle for attention: Evidence from an online platform for scholarly commentary," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    6. Martín-Martín, Alberto & Orduna-Malea, Enrique & Thelwall, Mike & Delgado López-Cózar, Emilio, 2018. "Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: A systematic comparison of citations in 252 subject categories," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1160-1177.
    7. Danielle H. Lee, 2019. "Predicting the research performance of early career scientists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(3), pages 1481-1504, December.
    8. Sergio Copiello, 2019. "The open access citation premium may depend on the openness and inclusiveness of the indexing database, but the relationship is controversial because it is ambiguous where the open access boundary lie," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(2), pages 995-1018, November.
    9. Enrique Orduña-Malea & Emilio Delgado López-Cózar, 2014. "Google Scholar Metrics evolution: an analysis according to languages," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 2353-2367, March.
    10. Andrea Giovanni Nuzzolese & Paolo Ciancarini & Aldo Gangemi & Silvio Peroni & Francesco Poggi & Valentina Presutti, 2019. "Do altmetrics work for assessing research quality?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(2), pages 539-562, February.
    11. Mohamed Bouteraa & Elhachemi Tamma & Mohammed El Hafedh Aichouche & Sadok Achour & Suddin Lada & Rudy Ansar & Lim Ming Fook & Brahim Chekima, 2023. "International Joint Ventures’ Knowledge Acquisition: Critical Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-18, April.
    12. Liwen Vaughan & Debora Shaw, 2008. "A new look at evidence of scholarly citation in citation indexes and from web sources," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 74(2), pages 317-330, February.
    13. Basma Albanna & Julia Handl & Richard Heeks, 2021. "Publication outperformance among global South researchers: An analysis of individual-level and publication-level predictors of positive deviance," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8375-8431, October.

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