Topic: [Guide] How To Stay Safe From Scam Advertising When Use Search Engine (Read 244 times)

Someone shared history about fake ledger website ads. If you are clicking fake website, and insert your seed on that website, of course your asset will be lost forever. So, be careful if you are using a search engine.

source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/e1z922/another_first_match_is_a_phishing_site_screenshot/

Even I have Adblockers and have bookmarked all the exchanges, this forum, wallet that I used we are still not safe to get phished so always double check the websites we are visiting check if there is a lock icon in the address bar to check the connection if secured. But most of all know what site we are really looking or expecting to visit as net, com, org etc have different uses.

It's better to bookmark the official site after the search. And another thing is that there is no way to know what the original domain is if it's your first time searching or visiting the website. It's better you check the domain of all the search results in other to know if there's a fake one.
And lastly, as you have said. Always do thorough research if you know what you want to on the domain involves submitting your info or making payments.

I'm sorry to say, even my Ads blocker turn on when using brave, I still can see ads on this browser.



I see ads like this many times when uses the Duckduckgo search engine service. Maybe for Google ads its working, but they are still can't block ads on other search engine services

I would suggest one more thing that is to use Brave browser it will not show you any ads until you enable.

There is an algorithm that most search engines work with when choosing what ad should appear on their search result page. Some use a quality score which combines relevance and references from users and other websites. There is also an auction for space on their page results.
It always helps to be extra careful, always cross check the websites domain name for any variations, and if it's a new website which you're looking for include scam and ponzi in the search to see what pops up.

Thank you for your support

Unfortunately, SSL is not guarantee that website is legit. If you read my post about a lot of fake websites using SSL was increased. "Phishing attempts increase 400%, many malicious URLs found on trusted domains", it will change our view about SSL and Phishing sites.



Great, i agree with you about this

@masulum it’s nice to see you have created a niche related guide, people often get trapped in these types of scams is because advertisement algorithms constantly show us what we search for. To take an e.g. a user searches for bitcoins exchanges (primariy keyword) now each and every ad containing this keyword will be shown to user and many users who don’t have time end up clicking on these ads.

Honestly I feel the advertising agencies need to do their due diligence before allowing fake sites advertisements, as they’ll be getting paid from their advertisers. While many do not notice typo I would suggest to look out for SSL certificate, every valuable site will have it on (* some fake sites also use it, but in my experience many fakes sites give ssl a miss).

As a rule of thumb I tell people never to click the first site after they used google search, let’s take Electrum for eg. my advice has always been to study all the domains and check for their description a fake site will never have proper descriptions and then people will know they need to avoid those fake site.

No worries to use search engine for the first time, but it will better open web address with typing manual for the second and next visit or bookmarked official website. But be careful about DNS hijack when using Bookmark feature, keep watch domain name before decide to login.

Yup, Brave is the best options to stay away from ads because Adblock feature inside browser. But, we don't know how people use their primary browser out there. My friends prefer to use chrome than brave. His reason is because chrome develops by internet giants, Google 

The best thing I definitely recommend as mostly these extensions is up-to-date on the current scam sites especially if it's a crypto-related site. Metamask has blocked many fake, fraudulent or phishing sites I've been to and it's really great to have this extension on your browser.

In terms of ads, I barely click those really and if I stumble upon it I manually search for its reviews first and the legitimacy of it if it's really new to me. I haven't used an adblock before but if you really want to get rid of ads maybe you can use Brave browser as it has a free adBlocker.

I am among those who often open a website after first searching through search engines, especially when going to open an exchange webiste, there are a number of exchanges that have a lot of phising web, what I'm thingking so it would be safer to do the above ( i'm really not aware about this)

Actually, this tutorial not only working for search engine, but also working to blog/web ads or even social media ads. If you read tbtc_mt2 with tittle COLLECTION OF GUIDES ON IDENTIFY AND AVOID SCAM PROJECTS. You will find lots of guides already shared by Bitcointalk member to avoid scam. Let's focus to advertising ads. Because we are often finding fake website on search engine ads. Here are a few tips to stay safe from scam advertising on search engines.

Don't look ads title, check their domain first
Something that we can read on search results for the first time is website or content title. Don't focus on their title, double check domain name of the advertiser. Title become the number #1 to trapping you to be a victim of scams. The Conclution is, Stop reading the title first, but focus on their domain.

Stop using search engines to open daily sites
Many people using search engines to open website because they don't want to write manually. Someone prefers to use search engine and typing "bitcointalk" than writing "bitcointalk.org" completely on address bar. If you want to safe from fake website, don't use a search engine to visit website you already know about it. Type domain of website manually. You just need to remember a few words on domain to stay safe.

Make a small research, if you are really new with that website
If you never know about websites before, do, for example, you don't know about electrum, if you are using electrum as keywords, of course you will find some result, and very possible your first results is "fake" electrum. So, before you are tying to only use "electrum" as keywords, make a small modification on your keywords to research such as use "fake electrum", with this keywords, you will find few results that will bring you to official and real domain of electrum.

Check small things on search results ads
Sometimes, you will find a typo on their title or typo on web description. If you find this results, stay away from that websites. Legit website developers will not do this. Everything on their website can buiild a brand awareness and trust from users. If their website has a typo, it can be a sign of fake website.

Use extension to stopping fake website to load
Metamask, Cryptonite, Bitdefender is few tools you can use to avoid fake website. Install this extension (add-on/plugin) on your browser. If website already on blacklist, extention will blocked website and give you a warning notification. This is very useful in case you make any unwanted click to fake websites on ads.

Use adblock
If you are not using adblock, you can using it now. Using adblock is the first solution to stay safe from fake website on ads. But, if you thing  you don't want to usie this exception, no worry it depend on your decision.