This is a big one for me. When I stopped using Google, it delivered better results than the alternatives, but I switched for privacy reasons. However, recently I sat at another person's PC, which used Google by default and man, those results are hideous. Not only are the first few results ads; but visually pretty well disguised - lots of results are totally trash and obviously paid to get those high rankings. While not actually being labelled as ads at all!
I can see how it's easy to misclick on some of those when looking for innocent stuff.

However - and I'm making an assumption here - it also depends what you're searching for. While this should all be common sense, obviously when looking for example for cracked software and other kinds of piracy. I sincerely doubt you will get scammer links when sincerely looking just for recipes or technical questions online. Of course I can only judge this as someone using DuckDuckGo and Startpage; it's possible that Google will show you scam links in top positions when looking for recipes. But on the engines I use, I would almost guarantee the results are clean.

Also, after a while on the net, you should already see from the URL if it's something familiar, normal-looking or if it already looks fishy. Like, the actual domain name, for instance. Above all search results (also in Google; just checked via Incognito window), you see it; and you also see the whole link when hovering.

Long story short: this should all be considered standard, basic precautions when surfing the web; but I guess some people don't want to bother. Then it's on them.

I also agree that a few extensions like uBlock Origin and HTTPS Everywhere are adviseable; some scammer sites don't get a certificate (or don't want to - since usually proof of ID is needed) and Origin removes some scammy shit like ads on Google by default, I think. Depends on your lists. Of course also great for privacy due to tracker blocking, but that's another story.