The once-mighty Google search engine is now rife with fraudulent search results.

I remember my first-ever internet search as a child in October 1999. My elementary school had upgraded to those adorable jelly bean iMac G3s. It was on Yahoo!, because that was the only website I knew. My friends and I squeezed into three plastic chairs, faces shining with excitement toward the comparatively tiny 15-inch screen. We were paralyzed by limitless choice and decided to search for the first thing we could think of. We were girls, so “girls” it was.

As you may imagine, this went very, very wrong. Now 25 years later, I am still making elementary mistakes when it comes to seeking answers online – but it’s not all my fault.

A few weeks ago I attempted to research Covered California. I Googled the name of this government program, the state’s online marketplace to find affordable insurance, and clicked on the first search result.

It was like I was back in fifth grade and it was my first day on the internet.

Even though Covered California is a robust website, operated as a partnership between the California Health Benefit Exchange and the California Department of Health Care Services, it is still a prime target for scam websites. In this case, a plain, white screen beckoned me to follow a link because Covered California had moved.

Luckily for me and my screen-glazed brain, this logic seemed fishy. I quickly backed out and located the correct website, coveredca.com – the sixth entry in Google search results.

Covered California is well aware of the potential for scams and offers a Consumer Protection website to help insurance shoppers protect themselves. Notably, scam websites rank in the top three most common types of fraud for Covered California.

The problem is growing. The 2022 blog “Google Search is Dying” and a 2023 article in The Atlantic, “The Tragedy of Google Search,’’ point to unregulated, revenue-generating tools like search engine optimization (SEO), AI and advertising as the culprits for the search engine’s dissolution. As Charlie Warzel writes in The Atlantic, “[Google Search] is also, like the modern web, creaking under the weight of its enormous size and an infinitely renewable supply of content, both human – and AI-generated… It’s harder now to find answers that feel authoritative or uncompromised.”

The University of Wisconsin offers a few simple tips to search the internet more safely, including installing a VPN, analyzing the security and privacy settings on your browser of choice, and scrutinizing search results using services like Google Safe Browsing to verify links. This informative, trustworthy article was the first legitimate result in a Google Search for “tips for safe internet searches.” It appeared 18th on the list.

As Congressional hearings continue to excoriate the internet’s titans (but not regulate them), it’s up to consumers to protect themselves against increasingly vulnerable search results. That is, if you can find the correct information.

CAITLIN FILLMORE is a freelance writer based in Monterey. Her work appears at caitlinslhfillmore.com.