Google Scholar stopped indexing, Why?

Software Support
1

Very recently, we came to know that GS stopped indexing our articles. And we came to know of another surprise that all our past indexed articles too aren’t there in the GS anymore.

We have Google Search Console and have done whatever we could do to fix the problem. As suggested by Google Scholar team, we are asking PKP fellows if there is anything which we are missing?

Please help!

2

What specific response or questions did you get from Google Scholar? When I’ve attempted to contact them in the past with similar inclusion/exclusion questions, it seems to be a black hole.

OJS has been referenced by Google Scholar as a model of how to expose metadata and fulltext for indexing, but the actual details of their processes remain obfuscated.

3

They said the implementation of SSL may has caused the exclusion. They asked for configuring the same on our server BUT I’m confused how to do this.

Are they asking for configuring the config file and are asking to use https instead of http? Doing this, will there be any loss of data or any such errors? Should I revoke the SSL (as the exclusion caused right immediately after implementing SSL), will this be the sure shot solution for the disturbing problem.

Your kind help is solicited on this.
Tagging @asmecher @ctgraham

4

Are you using Google Webmater tools? We just moved from http to https and I followed the instructions here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033049

Of course this is not Google Scholar related as such, but it probably does not hurt

5

@ajnyga Thank you for your advice.

I have already done what I could do with my Webmasters Tools but of no use. Google has already indexed my https URLs but the problem is with the Google Scholar.

I think it is a local problem with the OJS platform as the date I implemented SSL, the Google PDF Viewer plugin also stopped working on the https pages. But the plugin works on non-https pages (http pages). So, it is a local OJS problem for Google Scholar instead of general Google Search indexing.

Waiting for the PKP guys to come up with their piece of suggestion.

6

We are using OJS 3.0.2 with HTTPS (site-wide, not only login). All works fine, the journal is fully indexed in Google Scholar. So the problem is NOT in OJS. Although you may use other OJS version…

7

@Vitaliy Thank you for clarification.

BUT I need to hear on this from PKP guys @staff as to if I need to configure my configure file.

Thank you in advance!

8

What OJS version are you using?

Do you know if you have this patch in your Google Viewer plugin: pkp/pkp-lib#289 Make Google Viewer URLs protocol-relative · pkp/ojs@bf44d63 · GitHub ?

9

@ajnyga We are currently using OJS 2.4.7.0.

One more thing I want you to clear if we need to use HTTPS in the config.php or HTTP will not hurt while implementing SSL.

We have our config.php untouched and has HTTP before the OJS installation URL as we had before implementing SSL, should this also be changed to HTTPS? Will this affect OJS installation in any way?

Thanks for your notice and assistance.

10

So did you turn on ssl from config.inc.php?
See: Configure SSL in OJS

When we went to https, we turned on the forced ssl setting and defined the base_url settings to point to https addresses. Is this what you meant?

edit: but if I understood correctly, your site is running fine, only google scholar is the problem? It could just be that you need to give google some time to adjust to the new url’s, because google regards https as a new url.