General Questions

• How do I sign up or sign in to Outside.in?
• Do you show hyperlocal news outside the United States?

Do you show hyperlocal news outside the United States?

Not at this time.

How do I sign up or sign in to Outside.in?

No account or profile is required to browse Outside.in.

Outside.in for Bloggers

• How do I sign in to Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?
• How can I get my stories to show up on Outside.in?
• I've submitted my site to the Outside.in network, but my posts still aren't showing up on http://outside.in. What should I do?
• How do I sign in to Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?
• Where is the Feed Editor to tag stories using Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?
• Where is the Statistics tab of Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?
• How can I get the content I publish syndicated to Outside.in?
• What can I do in my posts to help Outside.in automatically catch all the regions and places I write about?
• How do I use GeoRSS?
• What if I don't understand these instructions?
• How do I submit a blog?
• How do I submit a story?
• How do I submit a place?
• Where is the Feed Editor to tag stories using Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?
• Where is the Statistics tab of Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?

How do I sign in to Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?

Once you register your site with Outside.in for Bloggers, there is no need to sign back in, at least for now. We will automatically distribute your stories across our network and send traffic to you. Rest assured, we'll be in contact as soon as new tools and tips become available. Email us with questions, comments and requests.

How can I get my stories to show up on Outside.in?

Register your site with Outside.in for Bloggers. Your site must have an RSS Feed for your stories to get into our network. It's best if your RSS feed publishes the full text of your stories so that we can scan it for mentions of locations. For more on full text RSS Feeds, see why full text feeds are so important on our blog.

Your stories will show up on Outside.in when users search for the neighborhoods, towns, cities and places that you mention in your posts. They may even appear on the Neighborhood News Pages of our major media partners in your area! Either way, you'll be seeing more traffic from us.

Learn more about geotagging your content

I've submitted my site to the Outside.in network, but my posts still aren't showing up on http://outside.in. What should I do?

First, check your RSS feed to see if the entire text of each story or just the first few lines of each story is being published in your feed. To ensure the best GeoTagging possible, you want to publish the full text of each story in your feed. Read this blog post for more information on full text feeds. If you're not publishing the full text, go into your blog's feed settings and change them to publish the full text.

If you're already publishing the full text in your feed, check your stories for mentions of a city name, town name or neighborhood name. If you don't find any, that is likely your problem. In the future, make sure you include either a city, town, or neighborhood name in your posts.

If you do find a city, town, or neighborhood name in a recent post, go to outside.in and search for that location name. Look for your story on the first page. If you don't see it, click on "older stories" until you find it. If you see other stories that are older than the one you wrote, then the issue is a little more complicated and you should email us.

To read more about how our GeoTagging works, please see our GeoTagging FAQ

How do I sign in to Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?

Once you register your site with Outside.in for Bloggers, there is no need to sign back in, at least for now. We will automatically distribute your stories across our network and send traffic to you. Rest assured, we'll be in contact as soon as new tools and tips become available. Email us with questions, comments and requests.

Where is the Feed Editor to tag stories using Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?

To upgrade our system, we've temporarily suspended the feed editor that enables you to tag your stories after publishing them. Rest assured, our new system is automatically tagging your stories with location information. We'll let you know just as soon as we re-introduce this feature to our toolset.

Where is the Statistics tab of Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?

To upgrade our system, we've temporarily suspended the Statistics feature. We'll let you know just as soon as we re-introduce this feature to our toolset.

How can I get the content I publish syndicated to Outside.in?

• Make sure your site publishes an RSS feed that includes the full text of all the stories you publish. We need to see the full text of your stories in your feed for optimal place and region detection. Read more about why full text feeds are so important on our blog. The feed should be linked in an alternate tag in the header of your homepage so we can find it.
• Submit your blog at outside.in/geotoolkit. We'll grab your feed and automatically attach places and regions to your stories.
• Use the Feed Editor in GeoToolkit to attach any regions or places we may have missed.

Your stories will automatically show up on Outside.in place, region, topic, and search pages for the places, neighborhoods, and cities that were attached to your post—whether we attached them automatically or you attached them manually in the Feed Editor.

What can I do in my posts to help Outside.in automatically catch all the regions and places I write about?

• When you write about places, mention them by their full name. Extra points for linking to the outside.in place page in your post.
• When you write about a neighborhood, mention it by name in your post.
• Use GeoRSS to indicate a specific location that your post is about. We'll attach that point to your story, plus all the neighborhoods, cities, and other regions that contain that point. (See more about GeoRSS below.)

How do I use GeoRSS?

GeoRSS Namespaces

In the tag that sets the version of your RSS document, add the following

xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#"

For instance, update this tag:

<rss version="2.0">

To this:

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#">

Latitude/Longitude Pairs

There are two ways to indicate a latitude/longitude pair associated with a post in your story:

1. GeoPoint

Before the </item> tag of your post, include a <geo:Point> that contains one <geo:lat> value and one <geo:long> value as follows:

<geo:Point>
  <geo:lat>40.704110</geo:lat>
  <geo:long>-73.986781</geo:long>
</geo:Point>

To indicate multiple lat/lng pairs, repeat the entire phrase:

<geo:Point></br>
  <geo:lat>40.704110</geo:lat>
  <geo:long>-73.986781</geo:long>
</geo:Point>
<geo:Point>
  <geo:lat>40.75570967636433</geo:lat>
  <geo:long>-73.98639678955078</geo:long>
</geo:Point>

2. GeoRSS Point

You can also indicate latitude/longitude pairs by including the latitude and longitude separated by a single space within tags:

<georss:point>40.704110 -73.986781</georss:point>

What if I don't understand these instructions?

If you still have questions, ask us for help.

How do I submit a blog?

Submit any site that publishes an RSS feed to Outside.in for Bloggers. Once we've crawled your feed, your stories will show up on Outside.in when users search for the neighborhoods, towns, cities and places that you mention in your posts. They may even appear on the Neighborhood News Pages of our major media partners in your area.

If you receive an error while trying to submit your feed or you don't receive the confirmation email from us saying that we've crawled your feed, check to make sure that your RSS feed is linked from an alternate tag in the header of your site.

How do I submit a story?

For now, we've suspended the submit-a-story feature, but if you publish a blog or site, you can submit it at outside.in/geotoolkit. If you know of a great local site we should include, please send it our way: editor@outside.in.

How do I submit a place?

If you have a place to submit, let us know: editor@outside.in. Be sure to include the proper name, address, city, state, and zip, and category of the place (restaurant, park, place of worship, etc). If you notice an error in the name or address of a place on our site, please notify us at editor@outside.in. We'll change it as soon as possible, after double-checking that you're correct, of course!

Where is the Feed Editor to tag stories using Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?

To upgrade our system, we've temporarily suspended the feed editor that enables you to tag your stories after publishing them. Rest assured, our new system is automatically tagging your stories with location information. We'll let you know just as soon as we re-introduce this feature to our toolset.

Where is the Statistics tab of Outside.in for Bloggers (formerly known as GeoToolkit)?

To upgrade our system, we've temporarily suspended the Statistics feature. We'll let you know just as soon as we re-introduce this feature to our toolset.

Miscellaneous

• How do I update something posted on the site?
• How do I get my place or business listed on the site?
• Can I send Outside.in event listings?
• What if I have a question that is not listed here?

How do I update something posted on the site?

If you see an error on Outside.in from a post in our system that was updated after we grabbed it, please send a note to editor@outside.in.mailto:editor@outside.in and we'll make the necessary changes. We do not create any of the content that we feature on the site—it all comes in from external sources. As such, we do not censor or edit other publications' words, but please drop us a note if you see something that should change.

How do I get my place or business listed on the site?

We're not a commercial listing site, but if you have a place to submit, send it our way: editor@outside.in.mailto:editor@outside.in. Be sure to include the proper name, address, city, state, and zip, and category of the place (restaurant, park, place of worship, etc).

Can I send Outside.in event listings?

Sorry, but we don't accept press releases or event listings. Our content comes from the great online publishers and blogs in our system, so we leave the events to them! However, if you have an RSS feed of events, send it to editor@outside.in, and we'll look into including it in our system.

What if I have a question that is not listed here?

Drop us a line with your question.