The h-index (Hirsch index) says a researcher has h papers each cited at least h times. Example: h-index 10 means at least ten papers with at least ten citations each. A single blockbuster paper will not raise h alone; you need a sustained core. That is why it roughly summarizes both productivity and impact.
h differs by database: WoS, Scopus, and Google Scholar can disagree because coverage differs. Career length, field citation speed, and co-authorship norms break naive comparisons. Early-career researchers are not “failed” for a low h; read it with field baselines and years. Book-heavy fields may look weak on article-based h.
Some Turkish job ads or internal rules set an h threshold; if they omit the source (Scopus/WoS/Scholar), ambiguity follows. Prefer “Scopus h-index = … (date)” in a dossier. The g-index rewards star papers more; i10-index is mainly a Google Scholar metric.
Salami slicing or citation cartels to inflate h are unethical and harmful long-term. Merging profiles via ORCID prevents artificially low h from split records. The citation entry covers the unit; FWCI covers article-level impact—h is an author summary.
When reporting citation counts, put field, article age, and database side by side so you neither inflate nor undersell the signal.
Read the h-index against field medians and academic age; otherwise you grade unlike disciplines with the same stick.
Reporting g alongside h shows both core productivity and upper-tail impact in one glance.
Keep Scholar clean by merging duplicates—otherwise the same paper can inflate i10 and muddy the table.