There is no bet to protect your hand. There is only valuebet. You have the best hand so you bet to extract value. Protecting your hand comes as a consequence of a valuebet . If he has a flushdraw for example and you have top pair. You bet and he has to pay if he wants to chase it. What will happen if he hits and what will you do? For this you need to learn poker. If he does not chase he will fold. But you had bet for value. You want him to pay in the first place with a worse hand not to fold. If you want them to fold a worse hand than you should be relearning the basics of poker .
There are only 2 type of bets. For value and as a bluff. The information, protecting your hand and all other things that you can think come as a consequence of a valuebet or of a bluff.
This is 100% correct.
The closer equities run, the more you want to stick in the pot with your made hands. A simpler way to put it would be, the more wet the flop, the more money you'll want to put in for value. For instance, if you have 89hh on a 8c9c7d flop, then 2 AcJc is almost flipping with you but you are slightly ahead and can never fold so you'll need to make your bets bigger for value. But you also need to be able to shut down. For instance, if the turn brings the Tc in this spot I would almost certainly believe I am beat at this point. So make your bets big while the board is wet and your hand is made. Be able to shut down when draws get there.
Conversely, the dryer the board (and higher the board) you'll want to bet smaller for value. You'll want him to call a half pot bet when he only has 20%
equity. But it is catastrophic to move him off a hand that you are crushing because you bet too big such as AcTh5d when we have AT and villain has A8. Betting too big here and getting him to fold can be worse than betting too small and allowing draws to come in imo.
But to re-iterate, there is no protection. This is never a reason to bet. There is only value. So if you think he has a draw, you want to extract the most value possible when you think he will pay to see a turn and river.
Don't pay attention to these posts that talk about "all depends on your reads". Or, "depends on how villain is playing". This may have some small influence on your decision but in the long run, it wont matter.