Google Scholar’s Ranking Algorithm : An Introductory Overview

Abstract

Google Scholar is one of the major academic search engines but its ranking algorithm for academic articles is unknown. We performed the first steps to reverse-engineering Google Scholar’s ranking algorithm and present the results in this research-in-progress paper. The results are: Citation counts is the highest weighed factor in Google Scholar’s ranking algorithm. Therefore, highly cited articles are found significantly more often in higher positions than articles that have been cited less often. As a consequence, Google Scholar seems to be more suitable for finding standard literature than gems or articles by authors advancing a new or different view from the mainstream. However, interesting exceptions for some search queries occurred. Moreover, the occurrence of a search term in an article’s title seems to have a strong impact on the article’s ranking. The impact of search term frequencies in an article’s full text is weak. That means it makes no difference in an article’s ranking if the article contains the query terms only once or multiple times. It was further researched whether the name of an author or journal has an impact on the ranking and whether differences exist between the ranking algorithms of different search modes that Google Scholar offers. The answer in both of these cases was "yes". The results of our research may help authors to optimize their articles for Google Scholar and enable researchers to estimate the usefulness of Google Scholar with respect to their search intention and hence the need to use further academic search engines or databases.