How to get listed in Google Scholar?

I recently received an e-mail from a classmate who found me on Google Scholar when searching for “design for new media.” I often Google myself but I had not Googled myself on Scholar before. A search for “Anne Helmond” returned four results. All the results are papers I have written during my bachelor at the University of Amsterdam. Two of the listed papers are hosted at this site, one of them is hosted at a classmate’s wiki and another one is hosted at my outdated university website. It made me wonder why these articles are included in Google Scholar while others are not. We know a fair bit about how Google Search works and how to get indexed by Google Search but how do you get into Google Scholar? Google itself provides us with the following information

What do you include in Google Scholar?
Google Scholar covers peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts, and other scholarly literature from all broad areas of research. You’ll find works from a wide variety of academic publishers and professional societies, as well as scholarly articles available across the web. Google Scholar may also include multiple versions of an article, possibly preliminary, which you may be able to access.
Why isn’t my paper included?
We’re always working to include new sources, and it’s likely that you’ll see additions to our index soon. Check to see if other articles from the same journal, conference or repository can be found using Google Scholar. If not, please ask the publisher or the scholarly society to contact us so we can include their content. (Google Scholar Help)

But as Search Engine Watch notes in a 2004 article on ‘Google Scholar Documentation and Large PDF Files‘ “Google would be doing themselves a favor in offering better documentation and disclosure about what Google Scholar does and doesn’t offer.”

Google’s own documentation is far from complete. None of my articles have been published so besides indexing established journals and repositories it is also indexing articles from the ‘regular web.’ What criteria does Google use to index articles and classify them as academic? My listed “articles” are my oldest articles, the ones I wrote during my first two years at University, and definitely not my best ones. I think it would be useful to make a distinction in Google Scholar between published articles, articles written by students or another kind of distinction.

I am wondering if Google Scholar’s indexing is slow, if eventually all my “articles” listed on my “Research Papers” page will be indexed. Why were two of them listed in the first place? Because the PDF mentions the University of Amsterdam? Did Google classify my whole blog as “academic?”

As mentioned, a search for my name “Anne Helmond” results in four articles. However when I search for “author:a-helmond” there are 52 search results. The first five pages are filled with articles like “Effects of tibolone and continuous combined hormone replacement therapy on parameters in the …” These articles are not written by me but by FA Helmond (yes, related) who shares the same initials. However, I am A Helmond and not FA Helmond or F Helmond. So please, Google Scholar, until I have become a Doctor in endocrinology, please work on refining your search results. Some more insight into the indexing would be appreciated as well.

I would greatly appreciate more reading material on this topic. If you have recently come across articles or blog posts that give more insight in Google Scholar´s indexing, please share them in the comments. Thanks!

2 thoughts on “How to get listed in Google Scholar?

  1. Thanks for your reply. I did find that form while browsing through Google Scholar’s own Help files but as I understood it the form is for Publishers only. Of course, it never hurts to fill out a form and see what happens.

    “author:a author:helmond â€? -fa didn’t return any more results for my papers but it did return a result of another related person, which was a nice discovery. Thanks.

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