Databases that track who cites whom

A citation database indexes publications and their reference lists, so it can show who cited what. That powers literature searching, citation counts, h-indexes, and journal metrics.

Coverage is everything

No database indexes all research. Each picks which journals, languages, regions, and document types to include — and those choices shape every number it produces.

Worked example — same author, three different counts
Search one researcher in Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar and you will usually get three different citation totals. Google Scholar is broadest (so highest); Web of Science is most selective (so lowest). Neither is “wrong” — they cover different things. Always say which database a number came from.

🔗 Learn more (free): Wikipedia — Bibliometrics (how citation analysis works)

Try it
Pick a well-known researcher and note their citation count in two different tools (e.g. Google Scholar vs Scopus). How different are they, and why?

Self-check

Why can the same researcher have three different citation counts across three databases?

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Modifié le: jeudi 4 juin 2026, 12:49