I’m not sure how google scholar judges relevance (e.g. I can imagine eye-catching negative results also being boosted up the rankings) but I agree it is a source of distortion—I’d definitely offer it as ‘better than nothing’ rather than good. (Perhaps one tweak would be sample by a manageable date range rather than relevance, although one could worry about time trends).
A better option (although it has some learning curve and onerousness) is query a relevant repository, export all the results, and take a random sample from these.
I’m not sure how google scholar judges relevance (e.g. I can imagine eye-catching negative results also being boosted up the rankings) but I agree it is a source of distortion—I’d definitely offer it as ‘better than nothing’ rather than good. (Perhaps one tweak would be sample by a manageable date range rather than relevance, although one could worry about time trends).
A better option (although it has some learning curve and onerousness) is query a relevant repository, export all the results, and take a random sample from these.