Frequently Asked Questions
Profiles
Why are my citations and h-index lower than those of Google Scholar?
Google Scholar counts the citations from various types of documents, including web resources. We only count the citations from peer-reviewed articles (plus some book chapters). On the other hand, Google Scholar has a relaxed mechanism for matching publications by author names. As a result, the number of publications for each other is usually overestimated on Google Scholar and underestimated in our system due to a strict matching mechanism (e.g., ORCID, name and institution/department, name and co-authors, etc.).
Not all my publications are in my profile. Can I add them manually?
Unfortunately, no! We do our best to recognise all authors, but it is not always easy. On the other hand, since we calculate the percentiles, it is fair to all authors to let the same system recognise the publications. If some of your publications are missing, it can be the case for others too. Therefore, the percentiles are statistically more reliable.
The core idea is not to be biased toward authors who actively maintain their profiles.
I don't like my profile. Can I delete it?
Unfortunately, no! It is not a personal profile but an overview of the scholarly literature. Removing any part of it damages the integrity of the whole system. By analogy, a public figure cannot request removal from encyclopedias.
Search Engine
Why aren't excerpts containing the keywords shown along with the results?
The purpose of the exaly search engine is to find papers. We use algorithms to weight keywords according to their distribution in each paper. Therefore, the finding is not based on a specific part of the article to be highlighted.
What are the meanings of numbers alongside the results found?
In most cases, if you hover over the corresponding text, a brief description appears.
Why is the number of results found for a keyword lower than that of other search engines?
The first reason is that we cover only peer-reviewed articles and similar documents. The second is that our search engine is not based solely on the appearance of a keyword in the text. We use NLP to improve search performance. Therefore, the algorithm excludes some results if they are not relevant to the searched topic, even if they contain the same keyword.
Scientometrics
Why are data subject to change?
We regularly update the database. If we find new citations or errors, the citations will be corrected, and thus all the indices using those citations will be updated. It is not very common in old papers, but it frequently occurs in new ones.
What are the scientometric indices used throughout the website?
We will write detailed blogs describing the indices. However, you can find general information about them on Wikipedia or similar resources.
Is there any rate limit on using the service?
Just keep in mind that we have limited resources. When you overuse the system, no one else can use it.
Why are some authors missed in the search results
We only list the authors for whom we have a profile. The purpose of displaying authors' names is to assist researchers in examining their contributions.
Service
Is there any rate limit on using the service?
Just keep in mind that we have limited resources. When you overuse the system, no one else can use it.
Why is there no API?
We do not have the resources to handle high volumes of API requests. Applying a rate limit by authentication added to the complication, and is not our priority.
Why are the datasets not available for downloading?
We regularly update the data, not simply adding new documents. We revise our algorithms to improve the data analysis throughout the system. Once again, we do not have sufficient resources to make all versions available. Furthermore, we do not wish to wreak havoc by distributing unversioned data whose origins cannot be traced.
We aim to release curated versions. However, instead of randomly releasing them, we plan to release them through peer-reviewed publications, as the data are independently reviewed before release.