ResearchGate is abused for citation boosting: evidence provided by 'public' advertisement

Here I 'save' some details of a discussion I started in ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/post/Hard_evidence_for_how_RG_is_abused_by_fake_profiles_Artificial_citation_boosting

During the investigation of a profile (in the meantime removed) https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Clementine-Williams I stumbled on the following advertisement:

https://it.fiverr.com/elena__georgiou/increase-google-scholar-citations-by-using-researchgate-and-other-journals

See also the following screenshot (in case the website disappears...):


and:



In other words, RG is used (abused...) to artificially boost citations. So, based selling 'papers' (known as paper mill operations) some made it into a business model to sell citations (let's call this: citation boosting 'services') see also:




all with an overview of the costs of this 'service':



She takes some pride in her 'works', if you click (while being on the website) here:



then you end up here:



see for another example:


or this intriguing one:


with more details:


 


So the scam works like this. Create (papers in predatory journals, preprints or AI generated papers) and upload them in ResearchGate. Include in these 'papers' references of those who paid for this 'service'. This way the 'client' receive citations in RG and most likely more importantly: since the RG uploaded documents ends up in Google Scholar. The client receive citations that (artificially) boost their Google Scholar profile.

Update 17-11-2025 in the meantime this profile is removed from RG 




Comments

  1. Ljubomir JacicFebruary 20, 2026 at 3:25 AM

    I have read it again after your alert at ResearchGate. Thanks dear Rob for your efforts which have brought fine results.

    ReplyDelete

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