Why are the first papers of some online-only journals cited significantly more?

When Tamás Kriváchy was in the process of getting one of his papers published, he realised that one of the references he included was wrong. After a closer look, Kriváchy, a physicist at the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, realised he had sent the journal the wrong reference. This was especially concerning as he was citing one of his own papers, which he had already referenced in multiple papers before.

Eventually, he managed to trace the issue back to where he believes the reference first went awry: in the bibliography of a journal article published by the publishing giant Springer Nature.