Google Scholar: The New Generation of Citation Indexes

Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) provides a new method of locating potentially relevant articles on a given subject by identifying subsequent articles that cite a previously published article. An important feature of Google Scholar is that researchers can use it to trace interconnections among authors citing articles on the same topic and to determine the frequency with which others cite a specific article, as it has a “cited by" feature. This study begins with an overview of how to use Google Scholar for citation analysis and identifies advanced search techniques not well documented by Google Scholar. This study also compares the citation counts provided by Web of Science and Google Scholar for articles in the field of “Webometrics.” It makes several suggestions for improving Google Scholar. Finally, it concludes that Google Scholar provides a free alternative or complement to other citation indexes.