Elsevier's Pre-proof Policy Blocks Google Scholar Indexing

Google Scholar is a vital tool for engineering scholars, enabling efficient literature searches and facilitating academic dissemination. Elsevier, as one of the largest publishers of engineering journals, produces essential research that scholars rely on. The pre-proof policy, adopted by Elsevier for certain journals, allows articles to be published online in their accepted draft form before final proofreading and formatting. However, this study empirically demonstrates that the pre-proof publication policy hinders comprehensive indexing by Google Scholar. Articles published under this policy are only partially indexed, often limited to titles and abstracts, while crucial sections such as introductions, methods, results, discussions, conclusions, appendices, and data availability statements remain unsearchable. This problem has persisted for years, resulting in reduced visibility and accessibility of certain Elsevier articles. To improve academic dissemination, both Elsevier and Google Scholar must address this problem by modifying publishing policies or enhancing indexing practices. Additionally, this paper explores strategies that authors can use to mitigate the issue and ensure broader discoverability of their research.