Citation manipulation through citation mills and pre-print servers

作者：Hazem Ibrahim, Fengyuan Liu, Yasir Zaki, Talal Rahwan · 发表于：Scientific Reports · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1038/s41598-025-88709-7 · 被引用次数：22 · 研究领域：scientometrics and bibliometrics research、Academic Publishing and Open Access、Academic Writing and Publishing

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. We then engage with a citation-boosting service, and manage to purchase 50 citations while assuming the identity of a fictional author. Taken as a whole, our findings bring to light new forms of citation manipulation, and emphasize the need to look beyond citation counts.