Making Research Results Discoverable With ASEO - Academic Search Engine Optimization

You can optimise the visibility of your research results yourself. This can include academic search engine optimisation (ASEO). ASEO involves making your publications easier to find by carefully curating titles, keywords and abstracts.

What is ASEO?

ASEO means optimising the findability of a paper by using a specific wording in the title, keywords and abstract. This is not a manipulation of the search function in databases and library catalogues. The article should only become more visible where it is relevant. To specify, it can be found easily and identified as relevant through more precise indexing. The visibility increase then directly impacts the frequency of citations. This can bring many advantages for both the authors of the publication and researchers conducting research on a specific topic.

How does ASEO work?

The principle behind ASEO is based on how (academic) search engines work. Researchers search for relevant articles in various systems, such as library catalogues, databases, Google Scholar, academic social networks, and literature management programmes, by entering search terms, keywords, and author names.

These systems search the metadata and abstracts of the listed articles for the entered terms. If the term is found in one of these places, a result is returned. Most databases and similar systems are also “discovery systems” that rank their results according to relevance. This relevance is determined by several factors. Two of these, which the authors can influence, are the location and frequency of the search term. Therefore, visibility is increased not only by using the right terms, but also by positioning them in the right place and mentioning them multiple times within a dataset. The higher an article appears in the results list, the more visible it is.

Equipped with this knowledge, researchers can improve the discoverability of their articles by using specific wording at three levels: The title and subtitle, keywords, and abstracts.

Title Optimization

The ideal title is short and meaningful, and encapsulates the key concept of the research. Avoid expressions such as 'the effect of', 'the involvement of' or 'the evidence of', as these lengthen the title while reducing readability. Titles should always describe the topic precisely, so that they can be understood without context and as a stand-alone publication.

The most important thing always comes first: the key term of the research paper should be included in the first 65 characters of the title. In particular, German grammar encourages placing the most important part of the sentence at the very end. From ASEO's point of view, this is problematic, but can easily be avoided. Turning the sentence around enables readers to immediately grasp the topic of the article, which is particularly helpful if the literature search yields many results. For example, rather than choosing 'The most important questions and problems surrounding ASEO' as the title, it is better for both humans and machines to place the relevant key term — 'ASEO' — at the beginning of the sentence: 'ASEO and its most important questions and problems'.

Particular attention should be paid to avoiding special characters. For example, hyphens between words are not recognised as word combinations. It is therefore not recommended to use 'hydro- and lipophilic' in the title, since the search engine does not recognise 'hydrophilic' as a word due to the separation of 'hydro' and 'phil'. Therefore, the article will not appear in the hit list when searching for 'hydrophilic'. A colon within a title can also cause problems. Some systems automatically replace subtitles with separators such as colons, which doubles the special characters and makes the title unclear. Publishers often misunderstand the purpose of colons, using them to separate titles and subtitles. As a result, part of the title may unintentionally become the subtitle. A study of hyphens in the titles of scientific publications also shows that hyphens can lead to fewer citations.[1]

  This is because those titles are far more likely to cause errors and the citations can then not be assigned to the publication. The publication is, in fact, not cited less often, but the number of citations is reduced. However, the same study also found that publications containing many hyphens are less frequently published in high-impact journals.

Not all search systems have text encoding that recognises formulas and special characters. Therefore, formulas and symbols must be reproducible by simpler text encoding in order to be found.

Creative titles lead to poorer findability because they usually only contain relevant keywords in the subtitle. However, subtitle terms are classified as less relevant, meaning the publication appears much further down the list of results. As subtitles can additionally be hidden in search systems, readers who come across a creative title will not be able to make a connection with the search term. Neither machines nor humans can identify the actual content this way.

To avoid impairing the visibility of your publication, refrain from using gendered terms in the title, such as „Binnen-I“, asterisks and gender gaps. Search systems cannot recognise the context of these terms either. Therefore, you should preferably choose gender-neutral formulations or write out both variants.

Do not use abbreviations, as your publication cannot be found when searching for the full form. To improve findability, at least use the full form elsewhere — for example, in the abstract. Bear in mind that abbreviations can have different meanings in different subjects.

Abstract Optimization

As abstracts are usually freely accessible, they and the title together form the most read part of your publication. The abstract often determines how frequently the article is downloaded by readers. At the same time, the abstract and title provide the basis for search engine algorithms that look for relevant keywords in order to classify the publication correctly. Therefore, it is important to make the text appealing to both humans and machines. The importance of abstracts for the discoverability of publications has increased, particularly since the introduction of AI search assistants, which primarily filter according to abstracts and metadata. AI search assistants rarely consults full texts.

In your abstract, mention the most important points first. These are the main results and conclusions of your publication. This is also important because not all databases display full abstracts. Formulate the key points in simple language, using short sentences and direct statements.

From an ASEO perspective, it is also important to use synonyms and generic terms in the abstract. This will ensure that a wide range of potential search terms relevant to the topic are covered. Remember that not everyone will search for the same keywords.

To show search engines that your publication can be clearly assigned to this subject area, repeat the relevant keywords several times. However, be careful not to use too many keywords, as this will make the text illegible and result in a lower ranking in the hit list.

Of course, the content of the abstract must remain coherent and legible. Don't sacrifice professionalism for the sake of perfect ASEO.

Keyword Optimization

Unlike the abstract, keywords should be indicative. Rather than describing the result of the study, they should provide information about its content. The question 'What is the study about?' is therefore central. Keywords form the basis for categorising your publication in different environments. They are often added as metadata to publications by librarians or publishers, so it is beyond the authors' control which ones are assigned. Nevertheless, you may have the opportunity to add keywords to your own publication. If so, it makes sense to increase visibility via ASEO by assigning appropriate keywords, which are then evaluated by search systems.

The following categories are relevant when selecting keywords: person, geographical and temporal classification, and topic and form (e.g. illustrated book, study, survey, method). Take the perspective of the searcher and ask yourself which keywords they might use for their research. Avoid meaningless words such as 'comparison', 'characterisation' and 'criticism', as well as similar formulations. Match the keywords with the title. Ideally, you should do a very specific categorisation of your topic in the title, and a broader one for the keywords. This will ensure that your publication is found by a wider range of users. You can also use generic terms for your topic here. We recommend researching thesauri to find suitable generic terms. Try out the keywords in a search engine yourself and check whether you are satisfied with the subject area in which your publication will appear. Match narrow and broader terms to avoid being found only by search queries that are too specific or too broad. Also bear in mind that keywords should always be written in the singular, not the plural form.

Further useful Optimizations

Graphics, Pictures and Tables

To optimise your graphics and images for ASEO, save them as vector graphics. It is therefore best to choose the .svg, .eps or .ai file format and avoid .jpg, .bmg or .png. Vector graphics have the advantage of machine-readability. This means that the data they contain can be used for ASEO purposes.

The file properties can also be optimised: search engines take into account alternative texts, image captions and table content. Include important keywords in those texts to match your research and the content presented in them. This makes images easier to find via image search.

PDFs

You can also edit the metadata of PDFs to help make them easier to find. Add titles, authors and keywords. This allows search engines to index the PDFs and their file properties.

If you are creating a PDF from a Word file, please note that Word will automatically enter the username in the 'Author' field. This can also be included in the PDF when it is saved. Therefore, always check the author field to ensure that your research is published under the correct name and not an unwanted username.

Publication structure

Search engines can also recognise the structure of scientific articles. For instance, they can read subheadings and references. Including keywords in the subheadings therefore increases the visibility of your publication. Paraphrasing important keywords in the headings should be avoided. This improves the content analysis of your article by search systems and makes it easier to find.

Good Practice in Science: Limits of ASEO

Of course, it is more important to maintain the integrity of your research than to increase its visibility. Therefore, you have to find a balance between optimising discoverability through ASEO and presenting high-quality, relevant research. Never compromise the quality of your research or your academic reputation for the sake of optimising discoverability. Over-optimisation is detrimental to your publication and gets also 'punished' by search engines and readers.

Acknowledgements

This blog post is based on the workshop 'ASEO: Using Academic Search Engine Optimisation to Increase Visibility' by Lisa Schilhan. She is Head of the Publication Services Department at Graz University Library. We would like to thank her for providing the workshop materials and content.

Further Reading

Schilhan, L., Kaier, C., & Lackner, K. (2021). Increasing visibility and discoverability of scholarly publications with academic search engine optimization. Insights: The UKSG Journal, 34(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.534

Bibliography

[1] Zhou, Z.Q., Tse, T.H. & Witheridge, M. (2019), “Metamorphic Robustness Testing: Exposing Hidden Defects in Citation Statistics and Journal Impact Factors.” IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2019, 1. https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2019.2915065