Comparison
ResearchGate lab page vs your own lab website
ResearchGate lets you create a lab page in minutes. What it’s good for, what it can’t do — your own address, design, recruiting, search — and why most labs use it alongside a lab website rather than instead of one.
ResearchGate offers lab pages: a place inside the network that lists a lab's members and their publications, and lets people follow the lab. It takes minutes to set up, and its help pages describe it as a way to increase your lab's visibility. Is it enough on its own?
What a ResearchGate lab page does well
- Quick setup from members' existing profiles.
- Publications come from members' profiles, so it fills itself.
- Reach within ResearchGate — people who follow you see updates.
What it can't do
It isn't your address. The page lives on ResearchGate's site, under their design and their rules. You can't use your own domain, and if the platform changes its features, your page changes with it.
Visitors may need an account. Many people browsing from outside the network meet sign-up prompts — not the experience you want for a prospective student.
Limited content. No real research page with figures, no news archive, no teaching or resources, no Join us page with an application form, no alumni with outcomes.
Every member needs a profile. Students without a ResearchGate account don't appear.
Little control over search results. When someone searches your lab's name, you want the result to be a page you fully control.
Use both
The networks are useful for reach; your own site is your lab's home:
- Keep your ResearchGate, Google Scholar and ORCID profiles current — they help people find your papers.
- Link from each profile to your lab website.
- Put the full story — research, people, openings, news — on your own site, on your own domain.
See also Google Scholar profile vs a publication list on your lab site and personal academic website or lab website.
On Labsite
A Labsite lab website has all the pages a lab needs, your own domain, publications that update themselves from ORCID, OpenAlex, Crossref and PubMed, and a Join us page with an application inbox — no visitor needs an account. Browse the templates or start free.