  In this paper, we study the causal impact of the web-search activity on the
research publication. We considered observational prospective study design,
where research activity of 267 scientists is being studied. We considered the
Poisson and negative binomial regression model for our analysis. Based on the
Akaike's Model selection criterion, we found the negative binomial regression
performs better than the Poisson regression. Detailed analysis indicates that
the higher web-search activity of 2016 related to the sci-indexed website has a
positive significant impact on the research publication of 2017. We observed
that unique collaborations of 2016 and web-search activity of 2016 have a
non-linear but significant positive impact on the research publication of 2017.
What-if analysis indicates the high web browsing activity leads to more number
of the publication. However, interestingly we see a scientist with low web
activity can be as productive as others if her/his maximum hits are the
sci-indexed journal. That is if the scientist uses web browsing only for
research-related activity, then she/he can be equally productive even if
her/his web activity is lower than fellow scientists.
