13.2 Disadvantages of Google Scholar

The disadvantages of Google Scholar are mostly related to the fact that GS is not structured as a traditional bibliographic database in the same way that Thomson ISI and Scopus are. This means that data are not always processed with 100% accuracy. Hence the main drawback in Google Scholar lies in its lower data quality. There are several aspects to this that I will discuss in more detail below. The other drawback is that complex searches that combine a range of bibliographic fields are not possible. However, as we have seen in this book, there are many useful searches that can be conducted with Google Scholar/Publish or Perish.