Paper in somebody else's thesis

Question

One of my papers is only published as part of a thesis by compilation by another student.

Can I claim citations of their thesis as citations of my paper?

Is there some way I can instruct google scholar that my paper is inside of that thesis?

Clarification: I am first author on the paper. The other student is a co-author. I allowed him to publish the paper in his thesis. The other student is from another university. For a number of year, his colleagues (who I do not know) would sometimes cite our paper. After he graduated, they choose to cite his thesis instead. I cannot fault them for this, but am a bit sad to not be receiving any more citations on this paper.

Answer 1

(note: I write this answer from a perspective in the biological/medical sciences, and norms about how to 'count' thesis work varies by field; however, in the fields I work in this sort of thesis where separate published or publishable papers are 'stapled together' is the norm)

It's great that your collaborator's colleagues are going to lengths to credit their work by citing their thesis.

However, a thesis is in some ways not a full publication, isn't really peer reviewed, etc.

You should publish the paper in a more conventional way if you want it to be cited by (and read by) the broader community. Your best bet would have been to do this when the work was prepared originally (and then the thesis would have cited as well as reproduced your collaboration).

No, you can't claim citations of their thesis as your citations, you didn't author their thesis and there is a lot of other content in there that is not yours.