{"id":9141,"date":"2025-04-04T10:07:33","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T14:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tcn.tidbits.com\/?p=10935"},"modified":"2025-04-04T12:47:54","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T16:47:54","slug":"dont-assume-that-top-google-search-results-are-guaranteed-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/dont-assume-that-top-google-search-results-are-guaranteed-safe\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Assume That Top Google Search Results Are Guaranteed Safe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We hate to encourage paranoia, but all is not well with Google Search. Recently, we\u2019ve heard of multiple instances where people were nearly taken advantage of due to relying on the top result in a Google search. In one case, a user called a purported HP support phone number directly from the search results but ended up speaking with a scammer. In another, a user thought they were downloading the latest version of Dropbox but got malware instead. In neither case could we reproduce the error, but they may have resulted from \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.techtarget.com\/whatis\/definition\/search-poisoning\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SEO poisoning<\/a>,\u201d a malicious technique in which cybercriminals manipulate search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to elevate harmful websites in search results. In short, don\u2019t assume that a site at the top of Google search results is guaranteed safe when downloading software or contacting a company. It\u2019s best to navigate directly to a company\u2019s official website before trusting that corporate information and software downloads are legitimate.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-10926\" src=\"https:\/\/macworks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/dont-assume-that-top-google-search-results-are-guaranteed-safe.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"686\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com\/Armastas)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We hate to encourage paranoia, but all is not well with Google Search. Recently, we\u2019ve heard of multiple instances where people were nearly taken advantage of due to relying on the top result in a Google search. In one case, a user called a purported HP support phone number directly from the search results but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,69,106,112,185,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-apple","category-apple-consulting-ct","category-apple-support-ct","category-mac-support-ct","category-mactech","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9156,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9141\/revisions\/9156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}