Why is Google Scholar not indexing DSpace repositories?

[Rafael Bértoli]

Hello,

We have noticed that Google Scholar is not properly indexing the items in the repository we manage using DSpace 7: https://digital.cic.gba.gob.ar/home. Currently, only about 20% of the publications appear as the canonical version, while in some cases they are listed only as alternative versions of the work.

This issue is of critical importance for us because we have a migration to DSpace 9 of another repository ready to be deployed in production. However, we are concerned about potentially losing visibility in Google Scholar, so we started investigating other repositories running DSpace 7/8/9.

As a general observation, most repositories we checked using DSpace 7/8/9 either did not appear in Google Scholar searches at all or had very low indexing coverage. The few repositories we found with a good indexing rate appeared to be very similar to those that were poorly indexed, at least in terms of meta tags. In some cases, the well-indexed repositories seemed to have more extensive visual customization, but this should not affect Google Scholar indexing.

At this point, we have not been able to reach any clear conclusion from our investigation. We cannot determine whether this is an issue related to DSpace in its newer versions (7/8/9) or simply an indexing behavior on Google Scholar’s side.

We are also aware of the issue reported on GitHub: https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/4509. However, it does not seem that the absence of this element alone fully explains the indexing problem.

Does anyone running a repository on these versions have good indexing in Google Scholar? If so, did you need to apply any specific configuration changes, or did the repository get indexed correctly without additional adjustments?

Thank you in advance.

[Carolyn Sullivan]

I have no advice regarding specific configuration changes, but the technical lead at Google Scholar who you should contact regarding indexing issues is Ollie Hamilton: oll...@google.com

Best,

Carolyn.

[Rafael Bértoli]

Thank you for the contact. I will reach out to them directly with my question. In the meantime, I would appreciate knowing if anyone else has experienced this issue.

[Sean Carte]

Hi Rafael

You're not alone. See this thread: 

https://groups.google.com/g/dspace-tech/c/07j7rGu35NY/m/HDxlKStACAAJ?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer&pli=1

Please let us know if you have any success with Ollie.

Sean

--
All messages to this mailing list should adhere to the Code of Conduct: https://lyrasis.org/code-of-conduct/
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DSpace Technical Support" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to dspace-tech...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dspace-tech/21f075f8-c975-446e-a117-d5e11681a10fn%40googlegroups.com.