Google Scholar pulling dates and publication title from bibliography (?)

Describe the issue or problem
The supervisor for our undergrad journal here (https://usurj.journals.usask.ca/ running OJS) noticed a super weird google scholar problem and I wondered if any of you have encountered it before.

Some journal articles are getting listed with metadata from their references in addition to their own metadata – usually the date and the publication name, that I’ve seen so far.

e.g. this paper from 2017 has 5 versions, and the date and publication are not the same for all of them:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=16448400909748574377&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

Listing with incorrect metadata:
image

Listing with correct metadata:
image

In the entries with incorrect metadata, it seems to originate in the paper’s references. See below for where 2001 and “Development” appear in the references list of the original paper:
image

I checked the metatags according to the PKP guide (https://docs.pkp.sfu.ca/google-scholar/en/#check-for-consistency-in-the-publication-date), but they seem to be correct, it’s just the search results that are wrong.
Screenshot 2022-07-13 135230

Another example: the last reference is the 1969 Journal of Contemporary history, but the paper itself is from 2016:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=868637863792652414&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5
(the metatags here are also correct)
This is the reference it seems to be pulling from:
image

Most worryingly, based on a few quick tests, it seems to mean the oldest date is being used when sorting by date which is not great if people are looking for recent resources…

Anyone else experienced this? I’m not sure how to fix it, since the metatags seem to be correct.

What application are you using?
Open Journal Systems 3.1.1.4

Additional information
The most recent two issues don’t have any articles with this problem, but I haven’t checked everything yet, so it’s possible this is an older problem that has been resolved, but these incorrect listings still exist (and I’d like to fix them if possible!)

Thanks in advance for any insight you may have!

1 Like

Hi @ehopkins

It seems that you are running the same journal in two different instances and version OJS:

https://usurj.journals-test.usask.ca/article/view/224 - OJS 3.1.2.4
https://usurj.journals.usask.ca/article/view/224 - OS 3.1.14

Maybe, it is causing this duplicated indexing and using some time dates that come from a testing instance. Notice that the second has DC metadata that doesn’t appear on the first.

Best,
Israel

Hi Israel,

Thanks so much for your response! It looks like the test version of the site and the current live journal site are different versions; they were set up before I started here so I’ll be sure to investigate and get away from the duplicate indexing.

However, the dates and journal titles that are showing up aren’t in either place – in both examples you linked above the journal title and date are correct in the metadata. There is extra metadata in the test version but it’s all about the author, submission process, etc. and doesn’t have the “Development” journal or the “2001” date. The incorrect title and date, as far as I can tell, are coming from references within the paper, not alternate versions…