Muhammad Zain Yousaf, a postdoc at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, became a scholar of note overnight. Or so it would seem, based on his now-defunct Google Scholar profile: From a modest 47 in 2022 and around 100 in 2023, Yousaf’s citations jumped to 629 in 2024.

In just two days, Yousaf had uploaded 10 short documents to TechRxiv, a preprint server hosted by the U.S.-based Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, or IEEE. Each of the documents was chock-full of self-citations. In five cases, Yousaf was an author on all 37 papers in the reference list.

The researcher, who asked to remain anonymous, said that Yousaf’s actions were ”a clear attempt to manipulate citation metrics on external platforms such as Google Scholar” and ”undermine the credibility of TechRxiv as a platform for genuine academic contributions.” One year later all of the documents remain on IEEE’s server. “IEEE is aware of the concerns regarding these papers and is investigating,” Francine Tardo, corporate spokesperson for the organization, told.

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2025/12/08/how-to-juice-your-google-scholar-h-index-preprint-by-preprint/

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