Abstract
Google Scholar is often used to search for medical literature. Numbers of results reported by Google Scholar outperform the numbers reported by traditional databases. How reliable are these numbers? Why are often not all available 1,000 references shown? For several complex search strategies used in systematic review projects, the number of citations and the total number of versions were calculated. Several search strategies were followed over a two-year period, registering fluctuations in reported search results. Changes in numbers of reported search results varied enormously between search strategies and dates. Theories for calculations of the reported and shown number of hits were not proved. The number of hits reported in Google Scholar is an unreliable measure. Therefore, its repeatability is problematic, at least when equal results are needed.
Highlights
For several complex search strategies used in systematic review projects, the number of citations and the total number of versions were calculated
The number of hits reported in Google Scholar is an unreliable measure
Google Scholar is frequently used as a database for biomedical searching, because of its wide and still increasing coverage [1]
Summary
For several complex search strategies used in systematic review projects, the number of citations and the total number of versions were calculated. Several search strategies were followed over a two-year period, registering fluctuations in reported search results. At the moment of executing searches for systematic reviews, I meticulously copied the contents of. J Med Libr Assoc 104(2) April 2016. Google Scholar page by page into a MS Word document and performed several calculations (such as the total number of versions and the number of citations) on the contents of each document. I searched a small set of searches at least monthly for more than two years to record the development of the reported number of hits over a longer period of time
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