It’s amazing how low some websites will stoop to monetize their traffic. Take weather.com, for instance. This site features a fairly incredible amount of untargeted, generic advertising. When I last checked, they were showing ads about “cash for gold” and “psychology degree online”. These offers have virtually nothing to do with the topic of the site and provide little value to users.

This leaves me wondering: does the small incremental revenue from these low-value ads make up for the loss of brand equity? Do users even notice how sketchy the ads are? I’m well aware of the issue, yet I haven’t switched to another weather site. But I do know that my overall impression of The Weather Channel, both online and offline, has declined considerably since I started visiting their site on a regular basis. And when repeat usage of a product makes a customer like it less and less, that certainly spells trouble down the road.