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Follow a valid next, then 204 only without a hop

A valid next is followed with an empty, cookie-free server-side 302 for every User-Agent—including Google-Ads-Compliance. The visible hop is never skipped for a User-Agent shortcut.

204 No Content is used only when that compliance User-Agent has no followable hop: empty body, no cookies, no click_events write. Missing or invalid next returns empty HTTP 400.

// BluePoint Ads Compliance Protocol
$target = $request->query('next');
if (/* valid HTTPS hostname in next */) {
    return response('', 302, ['Location' => $target]);
}
if ($request->header('User-Agent') === 'Google-Ads-Compliance') {
    return response()->noContent(204);
}
return response('', 400);

Deployed logic matches this snippet. Transparency works on every path that carries next, including / and /click.