Monetization + Discover CTR — Revenue Analysis & Placement Strategy

This phase adds revenue (AdSense) and click-through (Discover/social) to the programmatic scam pages, without harming UX or Core Web Vitals, and removes ads for paid users automatically.

What shipped

• Reusable ad components (components/ads/*): lazy (IntersectionObserver), responsive, CLS-safe reserved height, single-init, auto-hidden for paid users, graceful no-op when unconfigured.
• Placements: a below-verdict unit (highest viewability) + an in-article unit before the FAQ. Two units max — protects UX and viewability-based RPM.
• Paid-user removal: usePaidUser reads a shared cookie/localStorage flag; ads + the AdSense script never load for paid users. Hydration-safe (decision happens post-mount; server HTML matches first client render).
• Dynamic OG images (/api/og?template=scam): severity-coloured, bilingual (EN + हिन्दी), with the 1930 helpline — CDN-cached for a year.
• CTR badges: severity (risk), trust score, freshness, EN·हिन्दी — all truthful.
• Schema: ImageObject + SpeakableSpecification + article freshness dates.

Highest-RPM scam topics (India context)

Advertiser demand (and thus RPM) is highest where the reader has financial/commercial intent adjacent to the topic:

1. Investment / trading / crypto fraud — finance & brokerage advertisers; highest RPM tier.
2. Loan-app scams — lending/credit advertisers.
3. UPI / banking / KYC fraud — fintech, banking, security apps.
4. Tech-support scams — antivirus/security software.
5. Fake-job scams — job boards, upskilling. Lower RPM but high volume: OTP, lottery, courier, romance — monetize via sheer traffic + Discover.

Strategy: route the highest-RPM topics to the below-verdict slot (best viewability), and lean on volume topics for Discover-driven sessions.

Best ad placements

Desktop / tablet:

• Below the verdict (after the answer, before bullets) — reader is engaged, content above keeps it in-view → high viewability RPM.
• In-article before the FAQ — natural break, fluid format blends in.
• Sidebar: only worthwhile on wide multi-column layouts; the current single-column reading layout intentionally omits it (avoids low-viewability filler).

Mobile (majority of India traffic):

• The below-verdict in-content unit is the top mobile earner (above the fold after a short answer).
• A single in-article unit second.
• Avoid anchor/interstitial/vignette formats — they hurt CWV and risk policy issues; we deliberately don't use them.
• Reserved heights prevent the layout shift that mobile users (and CLS scoring) punish.

Paid-user experience

Active paid plans (sc_plan cookie/localStorage matching paid|pro|basic|premium|active) → zero ads, script not even downloaded. No hydration mismatch (post-mount decision), graceful fallback (free users with blocked storage simply see ads).

Estimated Discover CTR uplift

Discover CTR is driven by image quality + headline + freshness + trust. The combined changes target a meaningful lift over a bare SPA card:

• Dedicated 1200×630 OG image (vs none / generic): the single biggest Discover lever — large-image preview is enabled via max-image-preview:large.
• Severity-coloured, bilingual card + helpline: strong, honest visual signal.
• Freshness + verdict + trust badges: reinforce relevance/credibility.

Planning estimate: pages with a strong dedicated image + honest headline typically see roughly +15–40% CTR versus text-only/generic-image cards in Discover and social. Combined with eligibility from freshness + schema, expect Discover to become a material traffic source for trending scam pages within weeks of indexing. Estimate, not a guarantee — actual lift depends on topic, competition, and Discover's per-user ranking.

Performance & cost protections

• Static-first: pages are SSG; ads + paid-check are client-only and lazy → no impact on LCP/TTI.
• CLS-safe: every ad slot reserves height before fill.
• OG images render once per unique URL then serve from CDN for a year (1y immutable Cache-Control) → negligible compute, Vercel-hobby safe.
• No AI on the monetization/OG path. Low memory (Node OG render is short-lived, font fetched once + cached in module scope).
• Lighthouse-safe: no intrusive formats, no layout shift, deferred script.

Setup

Set in Vercel: NEXT_PUBLIC_ADSENSE_CLIENT (ca-pub-…), NEXT_PUBLIC_ADSENSE_SLOT_BELOW_VERDICT, NEXT_PUBLIC_ADSENSE_SLOT_IN_CONTENT. Ensure the consumer apps set the shared sc_plan flag for paid users (override key via NEXT_PUBLIC_PAID_FLAG_KEY). Until slots are set, pages render cleanly with no ad boxes (no CLS, no empty space).