A Google Scholar profile is a free page listing your publications, the papers that cite them and three citation metrics. To set one up, sign in with a personal Google account, complete the form with your affiliation and institutional email, add your articles, choose how updates are handled, verify the email, then make the profile public.
The upkeep matters more than the set-up, because Scholar builds your article list automatically. Its help page gives three reasons: authors' names are often shortened, two researchers can have similar names, and the statistical model Scholar uses to separate authors can get it wrong. Your list can therefore gain a paper you did not write, show one paper twice, or miss one. Checking it is the owner's job.
Create the Google Scholar profile with a personal account
The steps below follow the order on Google's Google Scholar Profiles help page.
- Sign in with a personal Google account. Google recommends a personal account rather than one at your institution, so that you can keep the profile for as long as you wish.
- Complete the sign-up form. Confirm your name, then enter your affiliation, your research interests and your university email address.
- Add your articles. Scholar shows groups of articles by people with names similar to yours, and one group can mix several authors' work. Add only work you wrote. If you have published under more than one form of your name — initials, a former surname, another transliteration — run a separate search for each.
- Choose how article updates are handled. Automatic, or emailed to you for review first.
- Verify your email. Click the link Scholar sends to your university address.
- Check the list, then make the profile public. Remove anything that is not yours before anyone else sees it.
If you may already have a profile, look under "My profile" at the top of Scholar or in its side menu before starting again. The help page explains how to merge duplicate articles, but it gives no procedure for merging two profiles. After a name change, edit the name on the profile you already have; our guide to author name changes and the published record lists the other records to update.
Verify an institutional email, or your profile stays out of search results
A profile is eligible to appear in Google Scholar search results only if it is public and has a verified email address at your university or institution. Google states that Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and similar addresses are not suitable. The verified address is not shown on your public profile.
The Google account you sign in with and the address you verify do different jobs. Sign in with a personal account so the profile stays yours. Verify an institutional address so the profile can be included in search. Being public with a verified institutional address makes a profile eligible, not certain to appear.
A new profile is private until you make it public
A new Scholar profile is visible only to you. To publish it, click "Edit" next to your name, tick "Make my profile public" and save. Unticking the same box makes it private again. Use the private period to clean the article list.
A public profile has a link of the form https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ID&hl=en, and the link works only while the profile is public. Put that address on your institutional page and email signature, next to your ORCID iD.
Automatic or reviewed updates: what the setting controls
Under "Configure article updates" you choose one of two modes. The choice affects only your list of articles. "Cited by" counts and the metrics always update automatically, whichever mode you pick. Automated updates also leave alone any article you have edited yourself.
| Mode | What happens | Suits you if |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic updates | Scholar adds articles it attributes to you without asking | Your name is distinctive and you check the list regularly |
| Review by email | Scholar emails you suggested updates to review | Your name is common, or shared with someone in a nearby field |
Google notes that automatic updates can miss a new article. Add a missing paper with "Add articles", or with "Add article manually" if a search does not find it.
Fix wrong, duplicate and missing entries in your Google Scholar profile
Owners can add, delete, edit and merge articles in their own profile. They cannot change any "Cited by" count, and editing an entry does not change the record Scholar shows in its search results.
| Problem | Fix in your profile | Beyond the profile |
|---|---|---|
| A paper you did not write | Select it and click "Delete". It moves to the Trash; "View trash" and "Restore" bring it back if you deleted the wrong one | Nothing further |
| The same paper listed twice | Select both versions, click "Merge" and choose the best citation. Metrics then count it as one article, and each citing paper is counted once | Nothing further |
| Wrong title, authors or year on an entry | Click the title, then "Edit", then "Save" | The Scholar search record is corrected at the source, usually through the article's publisher |
| Citations you know exist are missing | None: owners cannot edit "Cited by" counts | If the citing articles have indexing problems, Google says to work with their publisher |
For a wrong search record, the article page is usually the place to fix. Google's inclusion guidelines for webmasters describe Scholar reading bibliographic data from citation meta tags on that page. Our walk-through of the metadata we deposit with Crossref explains why correcting the Crossref record alone is not a reliable route. For missing citations caused by indexing problems in the citing articles, Google says changes usually take 6–9 months to show for most publishers, and can take much longer for very large ones.
What the citation count, h-index and i10-index on a profile show
A profile shows three metrics: total citations, the h-index and the i10-index. Scholar computes each in two versions, "All" and "Recent". The help page does not say how many years "Recent" covers, so when you quote a "Recent" figure, copy the column heading exactly as your profile shows it rather than naming a window yourself. Our guide to the h-index and other citation metrics explains what the h-index measures and why it favours long careers.
Three limits apply to every number on the page:
- They count your list as it stands. A stranger's paper left in the profile adds its citations to your totals until you delete it.
- They count only citations Scholar has matched. A citing article with indexing problems may add nothing, and you cannot add its citation by hand.
- They move without you. Google updates the metrics and the citation graph automatically whenever Scholar is updated. A figure copied into a grant form is a snapshot, so give the date beside it.
Switch on alerts so new citations reach your inbox
Click "Follow" next to your name, tick "New citations to my articles" and click "Done". Scholar then emails you when newly published articles cite any work in your profile. For a single paper, click its "Cited by" number and then the envelope icon in the left sidebar. An alert about a paper you never wrote is an early warning that a stranger's article has reached your list.
Keep your Google Scholar profile and ORCID record in step by hand
Google's Profiles help page describes no link between Scholar and ORCID, so assume nothing passes between them automatically. If you do not yet have an ORCID iD, our guide to registering for ORCID walks through it.
- Use the same form of your name and the same affiliation on both records.
- Put your ORCID record's address, or your institutional page, in the profile's "Homepage" field: click "Edit" next to your name, paste the address, then "Save".
- Compare the two publication lists. Scholar's "Export" button downloads selected articles as BibTeX, EndNote, RefMan or comma-separated values (CSV) files for a side-by-side check.
- When one record changes — a new job, a new name — change the other the same day.
Copy this Google Scholar profile maintenance checklist
| When | Check | Where in Scholar |
|---|---|---|
| At set-up | Personal Google account used; affiliation, interests and university email entered; verification link clicked | Google sign-in; sign-up form; your university inbox |
| At set-up | One article search run for each form of your name | Add articles |
| At set-up | Update mode chosen | Configure article updates |
| At set-up | List checked, then profile made public | Edit next to your name, then Make my profile public |
| At set-up | Citation alerts switched on | Follow, then New citations to my articles |
| After each new paper | The paper is listed once, with correct details | Article list; Add article manually; Edit |
| After each update email | Every suggested article is yours before you accept it | The suggested-updates email |
| At each CV or grant update | No duplicates, no strangers' papers, nothing you need left in the Trash | Merge; Delete; View trash |
| At each CV or grant update | Scholar and ORCID lists match | Export; your ORCID record |
| After a move or a name change | New affiliation; an address at the new institution verified; name edited on the existing profile | Edit next to your name |
If a wrong entry traces back to an article we published — a misspelled name or a wrong year on the article page — report the problem with that article so we can check the page. Once the profile is clean, share its link as part of the steps in our guide to promoting your published paper.