Students in northern China’s Shanxi province shouldn’t use search engines to look up official college application portals, lest they accidentally enter their school preferences and personal information into a fraudulent site, local officials warned Monday.

The notice, which was issued by the province’s center for student recruitment and examination, came as students around the country received their college entrance exam scores and prepared to apply to schools. On Wednesday, Wuhan’s Changjiang Daily highlighted fake college application sites as one way scammers collect personal information.

In recent years, netizens have repeatedly criticized Baidu, China’s largest search engine, for its substandard search rankings and for promoting misinformation. According to a Tuesday investigative report by Caixin, Beijing’s official college application portal did not appear on the first page of search results for the phrase “Beijing (college) preference” on any of four major search engines, including Baidu. (Image: IC)