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Methods for estimating the size of Google Scholar

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Abstract

The emergence of academic search engines (mainly Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search) that aspire to index the entirety of current academic knowledge has revived and increased interest in the size of the academic web. The main objective of this paper is to propose various methods to estimate the current size (number of indexed documents) of Google Scholar (May 2014) and to determine its validity, precision and reliability. To do this, we present, apply and discuss three empirical methods: an external estimate based on empirical studies of Google Scholar coverage, and two internal estimate methods based on direct, empty and absurd queries, respectively. The results, despite providing disparate values, place the estimated size of Google Scholar at around 160–165 million documents. However, all the methods show considerable limitations and uncertainties due to inconsistencies in the Google Scholar search functionalities.

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Notes

  1. http://thewebindex.org.

  2. The Custom range option appears after a query is submitted in the search box of Google Scholar. The user can also access to the advanced search option to set the year range. Moreover, we can execute this query directly on the browser via http as well. Once we obtain the first results via hit count estimates, we can generate new queries without introducing any keyword in the search box, and only selecting the time span required. This is the procedure followed in this study.

  3. Additional information about the biases of WoS towards English and article document type is available in the supplementary material (Appendix V).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. EC3 Research Group, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022, Valencia, Spain

    Enrique Orduna-Malea

  2. EC3 Research Group, Universidad de Granada, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Juan M. Ayllón, Alberto Martín-Martín & Emilio Delgado López-Cózar

Authors
  1. Enrique Orduna-Malea
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  2. Juan M. Ayllón
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  3. Alberto Martín-Martín
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  4. Emilio Delgado López-Cózar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Enrique Orduna-Malea.

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Orduna-Malea, E., Ayllón, J.M., Martín-Martín, A. et al. Methods for estimating the size of Google Scholar. Scientometrics 104, 931–949 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1614-6

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