H-Index Calculator

How to Use the H-Index Calculator

1. 1. Paste your citation counts. One number per paper, from Google Scholar, Scopus or Web of Science. Two columns copied from a spreadsheet — title and citations — work too.
2. 2. Add the year of your first publication for the m-quotient, and choose how to count the years.
3. 3. Read the results. The metrics, the working for each, the h-core and the chart all update as you type.
4. 4. Download the chart as SVG or PNG, or copy the ranked data into a spreadsheet.

The Formulas

Rank the papers from most to least cited, so paper 1 has the most citations. Then:

• h-index (Hirsch, 2005): the largest h such that h papers have at least h citations each. On the chart it is the last rank whose bar still reaches the line rank = citations.
• g-index (Egghe, 2006): the largest g such that the top g papers have at least g² citations between them. It keeps rewarding citations to your most-cited papers, which the h-index stops counting once they are in the core, so g is never smaller than h.
• i10-index (Google Scholar): the number of papers with at least 10 citations.
• m-quotient (Hirsch, 2005): m = h ÷ n, where n is the number of years since the first publication. Hirsch suggested that in physics m ≈ 1 marks a successful scientist and m ≈ 2 an outstanding one.

Conventions differ in two places, and the calculator shows both. In its usual form the g-index cannot exceed the number of papers listed; Egghe's original definition imagines extra uncited papers and can go higher, so the uncapped value is given when it differs. And n in the m-quotient is the years elapsed since the first paper in Hirsch's wording, while some profiles count both end years — 2014 to 2026 is 12 years one way and 13 the other.

A Worked Example

Fifteen papers with these citation counts: 48, 33, 30, 21, 17, 12, 9, 8, 5, 3, 1, 0, 0, 0 and 0.

• h = 8. The paper ranked 8 has 8 citations, at least 8; the paper ranked 9 has 5, fewer than 9.
• g = 13. The top 13 papers have 187 citations between them, at least 13² = 169; the top 14 also have 187, fewer than 14² = 196.
• i10 = 6. Six papers have 10 or more citations.
• Totals. 187 citations, 12.5 per paper; the eight papers of the h-core hold 178 of them.
• m = 0.67. With the first paper in 2014, measured in 2026: m = 8 ÷ 12 = 0.67, or 8 ÷ 13 = 0.62 counting both end years.

Why Your H-Index Differs Between Databases

Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science count different things, so the same researcher has three h-indices. Google Scholar indexes the most — books, theses, preprints and other documents it finds on the web — so its counts run highest, duplicates and misattributions included. Scopus and Web of Science count citations only from the journals, conference proceedings and books they index, so their counts are lower but cleaner, with Scopus usually the broader of the two. Coverage also varies by field: where books and conference papers matter most, as in the humanities and computer science, the curated databases miss more. State the source and the date whenever you quote an h-index.

What the H-Index Cannot Tell You

• It grows with career length. h never falls, so early-career researchers score low whatever the quality of their work — the m-quotient adjusts for this, roughly.
• It ignores the field. Citation habits differ hugely between disciplines; an h-index of 10 means something different in mathematics and in medicine.
• It ignores authorship. A paper with 300 authors counts as fully yours, as does a single-author book.
• It can be inflated by self-citation and citation circles, and it rewards producing many papers as well as being cited.
• It is not a verdict on quality. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and the Leiden Manifesto both ask for research to be judged on its content, with indicators such as this one as support rather than substitute.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is the h-index calculated?

Sort your papers by citations, most cited first, and find the last position where the paper's citation count is at least its rank. If your eighth most-cited paper has 8 or more citations and your ninth has fewer than 9, your h-index is 8.

What is a good h-index?

It depends on the field and the career stage. Hirsch suggested that, in physics, an h-index that rises by about one a year (m ≈ 1) marks a successful scientist. Compare only with people in the same field and at a similar stage, using the same database.

What is the difference between the h-index and the i10-index?

The i10-index is Google Scholar's count of papers with at least ten citations — a fixed threshold. The h-index's threshold rises with your record: to reach 20, you need 20 papers with 20 citations each. Two researchers with the same i10-index can have very different h-indices.

What is the g-index?

Leo Egghe's 2006 refinement of the h-index: the largest number g such that your top g papers have at least g² citations together. Unlike the h-index it keeps counting citations to your most-cited papers, so it is always at least as large as h.

Why is my h-index different on Google Scholar and Scopus?

They index different documents. Google Scholar counts citations from almost anything it finds on the web, including books and preprints, so its figure is usually the highest; Scopus and Web of Science count citations only from the sources they index. Use one database consistently and say which.

Can I check my Google Scholar h-index with this calculator?

Yes. Google Scholar shows your h-index and i10-index on your profile; to check them, or to get the g-index and m-quotient too, copy the counts from the Cited by column of your profile and paste them in, one per line.