Saturday, 14 February 2026
A research article’s digital cul-de-sac. How to fix an academic paper that is hidden and/or unreachable
Written for researchers keen to understand potential obstacles to their articles not being readily searchable via academic indexes and search engines thanks to broken linkages or a metadata mismatch.
Most researchers would seem keen for their works to be well-indexed, quick-to-find, and reliably linked to their academic publisher’s landing page for that paper via search engines. This is especially true for scholars whose performance reviews include consideration of their works’ impact in reaching interested readers. Such impact scores can include citations, amplification and readership, as tracked via ALtmetrics and/or other sources.
Most researchers would seem keen for their works to be well-indexed, quick-to-find, and reliably linked to their academic publisher’s landing page for that paper via search engines. This is especially true for scholars whose performance reviews include consideration of their works’ impact in reaching interested readers. Such impact scores can include citations, amplification and readership, as tracked via ALtmetrics and/or other sources.
This post provides an example to illustrate why a research author should not assume that every article of his or hers will be properly indexed. As result, this work may not be seen by potentially interested parties searching for pertinent work with salient keywords, despite the work's merits. Metadata mismatches and broken linkages can unwittingly emerge during academic publishing, and may persist if not checked and corrected. This post gives helpful advice for correcting a few key problems, sharing the practical example of errors that impacted a South African journal article's availability shortly after its digital publication on the 1st of December, 2025:
'Brandjacked for social media advert fraud'- a ghost in the fog...
The first publication from a research project that began in 2021, Brandjacked for social media advert fraud: Microcelebrities' experiences of digital crime, was published in the Acta Criminologica: African Journal of Criminology & Victimology journal. Ordinarily, new articles should only take a few weeks after being indexed by CrossRef before they appear in the paper's authors academic profiles (such as Google Scholar linked to ORCID), listings under academic social networks and in search engine and AI results. While results for the article were evident under the last, it could not be found under the former. This post explores such challenges and why the article took over two months to be properly indexed for academic searches. While the paper technically existed, it could not readily be shared online by its four authors, while listing results linked to a 'page not found' error message, rather than the publisher's article landing page.
Multiple URLs as expected
A normal part of the academic publishing process sees several URLs being created for a particular publication. In Brandjacked's case, these are from the handle.net domain (pointing to https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2) and the journals.co.za one (onto https://journals.co.za/doi/10.10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2). Sabinet African Journals (journals.co.za) is a searchable platform providing a comprehensive, full-text collection for over 600 African-published electronic journals. Handle.net is developed by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) to support a distributed information system for persistent, unique, and actionable identifiers (handles) for digital objects over the internet. The Handle System is the underlying technology used by the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system to identify content, particularly for digital publishing and commerce.
Brandjacked's DOI value changed post-publication
A DOI is a unique, permanent alphanumeric string that is assigned to digital objects. DOIs include a prefix always starting with 10 and a suffix, separated by a forward slash (/). Prefacing the DOI with doi.org creates an actionable link. Originally, the brandjacked article was allocated the DOI 10.10520/ejc-crim_v2025_nse1_a2. However, this was subsequently changed to 10.10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2, reflecting the article’s publication as the second in the 38th volume’s third issue.
Commonly linked to journal articles, books, and research datasets, each DOI should provide a stable, long-lasting link to a research output’s internet location, regardless of whether its online address [or Uniform Research Location (URL)] gets changed.
Social media shares…
On social media, academics, researchers and scholars typically share the DOI version of URLs, since DOIs usage is the primary identifier for tracking comments and mentions via AltMetrics. The attention for academic publications is sparse, with most not being shared on social media, and a significant portion only being shared once via popular social media platforms. Only a few papers, often with high public interest or "quirky" topics, receive the vast majority of shares. To help Brandjacked's visibility, I wrote a 31 tweet long thread at x.com/travisnoakes/status/2001585342000898177, shared a LinkedIn post at linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7407406366052569089/, and wrote this public Facebook post at facebook.com/share/p/1BtsXaJtQC/.
… but no AltMetrics listing yet
On the Brandjacked article’s landing page, no Altmetrics were shown at the date of this post's publication (see Figure 1 below).
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| Figure 1. No AltMetrics listing for Brandjacked article. |
Nor are results for the Brandjacked article are shown on https://app.dimensions.ai/discover/publication?search_mode (see Figure 2).
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As a research blogger, I like to share Altmetrics badges for my publications, but none is available for Branjacked via badge.dimensions.ai/details/doi/10.10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2?domain=https://journals.co.za (see Figure 3).
No automatic article updates to the authors’ ORCID profiles
Each of Brandjacked’s four authors have an ORCID address. This is a 16-digit persistent digital identifier (e.g., 0000-0001-9566-8983) that uniquely identifies research-contributors all over the world. Like the DOI value does for research outputs, ORCID resolves name ambiguity. It links all research publications, datasets, and grants to an individual, regardless if their name or institution changes. Authors can set their ORCID profile to be automatically updated with research outputs that are linked to them. As of this post’s date of publication, the Brandjacked article was not linked from any of the authors’ ORCID profiles.
Google Scholar links to a 404 error on the article's landing page
The academic search engine, Google Scholar, is popular due to offering the widest automatic global indexing of scholars' works. In its case, Google Scholar account holders can create manual entries for their articles, or select pre-existing records featuring their author name.
In Brandjacked’s case, I created a manual record in late December, since no record for this paper was available for selection (Figure 3). Since then, Google Scholar has come to list two versions of the article.
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| Figure 3. Two versions of Brandjacked on Google Scholar. |
The top version, which can be Saved and Cited, produced a 404 error when clicked through to Acta Criminologica (Figure 4).
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| Figure 4. DOI not resolved from Google Scholar |
Thinking that this may have been caused by the manual record I created featuring the initial DOI, I chose to delete the article from my record. Then went into Google Scholar trash and selected ‘Delete Forever’. However, the article available for manual selection (Figure 5) still links to a 404 result.
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| Figure 5. Google Scholar manual selection of Brandjacked |
Reporting a failed DOI link via doi.org
A manual entry created on ResearchGate (at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398814505_Brandjacked_for_social_media_advert_fraud_Microcelebrities'_experiences_of_digital_crime_in_South_Africa) lists the correct DOI (Figure 6), but it also showed a 404 error when linking to the digital publication.
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| Figure 6. ResearchGate DOI is correct for Brandjacked |
At least this page presented an option to report the failed DOI. So, I submitted this error report to DOI: "The article 'Brandjacked for social media advert fraud' should be available at this DOI. Related working URLs are: https://journals.co.za/doi/10.10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2 & https://hdl.handle.net/10520/ejc-crim_v38_n3_a2. Thanks in advance for fixing this."
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| Figure 7. DOI error report for Brandjacked, 12 Feb 2026 |
As a shortcut for checking-and-reporting DOI errors, authors should open www.doi.org, then scroll down to the 'Try resolving a DOI name' section. There they can enter a DOI value to check it, and report a DOI URL address that fails in throwing a 404 error.
![DOI Prefix [10.10520] Not Found.png](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDEzqL4beKD8zMIGkhp6iWGUj-JBn6HNu5Kxiuk7YzppaCG5je4xEOMY0xNKm7XroYFTLduiyNrxPPZprQV-PDNvHlEmgVh5_aY4jmLe47-YFoi1U09UxXqurCEexdlvbO6fPvuf-BQ5T4CPmPYtfHufuU5oqAXWrvsZyzt5Tl5uQim1lw1W7pTg-qI1sq/s2108/DOI%20Prefix%2010.10520%20Not%20Found.png "DOI Prefix [10.10520] Not Found.png") |
| Figure 8. DOI Prefix 10.10520 Not Found.png |
A few downloads from restricted access, the holidays... and a ghost listing?
Acta Criminologica’s ‘Open Access’ policy initially provides restricted access via SABINET's archives. These are available via university libraries’ annual SABINET subscription for SA_ePublications (Sabinet African Electronic Publications). There is a 12-month open access embargo from the date of publication/loading on CRIMSA’s website. Perhaps being published before the Christmas holidays in an access restricted format contributed to Brandjacked only being downloaded five times in two months. But even achieving that readership is not been helped by a ghost listing amidst a heavy stream of academic publications. As Trend MD reports, nearly 8,000 research articles are published everyday!
Writing a letter to the Editor
Given that the landing page URL is throwing a 404 error and the DOI is not resolving, it seems likely that the error is a flaw on the publisher's end. I have written to the journal's editor to request that the CrossRef metadata is updated. Hopefully, the journal’s production team can soon ensure that: (i) the landing page URL for the article is correctly mapped to its DOI. And that (ii) the metadata provided to CrossRef and other aggregators is updated to reflect a functional DOI link. I did flag that this issue impacts other articles in the Cybercrime special issue, so it's crucial to fix for all its authors’ benefit, too.
Conclusion
After overcoming the challenges of review, revisions, and achieving a digital publication, academic authors may face a new challenge- following up that their publications are well-indexed, as this should not be assumed. Hopefully this post presents a helpful example of this problem, and ideas that authors can follow to to resolve it.
N.B. This blogpost is a work-in-progress, as the problem is not fixed, yet. I will update the post to reflect new learnings as the issue gets fixed. Do add a comment below if you have any related suggestions or other feedback...
N.B. This blogpost is a work-in-progress, as the problem is not fixed, yet. I will update the post to reflect new learnings as the issue gets fixed. Do add a comment below if you have any related suggestions or other feedback...
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