Google Scholar is manipulatable
<|reference_start|>Google Scholar is manipulatable: Citations are widely considered in scientists' evaluation. As such, scientists may be incentivized to inflate their citation counts. While previous literature has examined self-citations and citation cartels, it remains unclear whether scientists can purchase citations. Here, we compile a dataset of ~1.6 million profiles on Google Scholar to examine instances of citation fraud on the platform. We survey faculty at highly-ranked universities, and confirm that Google Scholar is widely used when evaluating scientists. Intrigued by a citation-boosting service that we unravelled during our investigation, we contacted the service while undercover as a fictional author, and managed to purchase 50 citations. These findings provide conclusive evidence that citations can be bought in bulk, and highlight the need to look beyond citation counts.<|reference_end|>
@article{ibrahim2024google,
    title={Google Scholar is manipulatable},
    author={Hazem Ibrahim, Fengyuan Liu, Yasir Zaki, Talal Rahwan},
    journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.04607},
    year={2024},
    archivePrefix={arXiv},
    eprint={2402.04607},
    primaryClass={cs.CE cs.DL cs.SI physics.soc-ph}
}