Release Notes

What's new on TownVue. Most recent first.

v2026.08.28 (August 28, 2026): Your listing's month, in one number

Free listings now get a monthly Listing Watch

New: owners on the Free plan now get a short monthly email carrying one real number from the month just gone: how many people messaged you, how many searches your listing came up in, or how many opened it. Messages come first, because that is the one you can check against your own inbox.
It also names the rest of the figures your dashboard tracks on Plus, so what the fuller picture covers is clear before you decide anything.

The Business Brief is the Plus and Pro version of that email

Changed: the monthly TownVue Business Brief, with the full numbers for every listing you own, a tip worth reading, and a look at how TownVue is doing, now goes to Plus and Pro. Listing Watch is what the Free plan gets, on the same morning.
Moving between plans switches which one arrives, with nothing to sign up for and nothing to cancel. It stays one email with one unsubscribe link, and your listing stays live on Free either way.
Changed: the Pricing comparison now shows this as a single row: one number on Free, the full Business Brief on Plus and Pro.

v2026.08.27 (August 27, 2026): Claim your listing in about a minute

Prove the listing is yours, without waiting on us

New: claiming a listing can now finish in about a minute. Pick your business, ask for a code, and we send a six-digit code to the email address already on that listing. Enter it and the listing is yours straight away. Being able to read that inbox is the proof, which is the same thing a person was checking by hand before.
Changed: pressing "That's mine" now opens a short screen where you choose how to prove it: the code, or a request someone reviews. The review route works exactly as it did, and it's still there for anyone who can't get to that inbox.
Improved: searching for your business now finds it even when the spelling differs.
New: the create form now checks as you type and tells you if the business is already on TownVue, matching on name, phone, address and website. If it finds yours, it offers to claim it instead. Claiming keeps the listing's reviews, photos and search history, which starting over would leave behind.
It's a heads-up, never a block. If it flags something that isn't you, carry on and create your listing.

On the cards

New: listings with a coupon running now carry a Coupon tag on town pages and top picks, so a deal is visible before you open the listing.
Changed: Pro listings now have a warmer card background with a gold edge, alongside the taller photo and bigger title they already had. As ever, this changes how a card looks and never where it sits: position on TownVue is not for sale.

v2026.08.19 (August 19, 2026): Three plans, free claiming, and coupons that work at the counter

TownVue now has three plans: Free, Plus, and Pro

New: business listings now come in three plans. Free keeps your business in the directory at no cost. Plus ($10 a month per listing) opens up the full set of listing tools and includes one paid event or experience listing each month. Pro ($49 a month, account-wide) covers up to five listings and adds a built-in blog, a showcase video, scheduled coupons, and advanced analytics. The full side-by-side comparison is on the Pricing page.
Changed: free trials are retired. Every paid plan now carries a 30-day money-back guarantee instead.
Changed: billing is monthly only. The annual options, including the old Unlimited Annual plan, are gone.
Changed: cancelling a paid plan moves the listing to Free instead of taking it down.
If you subscribed before this change, you keep everything you had. The new plans only ever raise your limits, never lower them.
Paid plans get a Member marker and a larger card in search results. Both change how your card looks, never where it appears: position on TownVue is not for sale.
Changed: the Trading Post is free on every plan, and with no plan at all.

Claiming the listing that's already yours is free

Changed: claiming a listing no longer costs anything and asks for no card. With a claim code it's instant; without one, "Find my business" files a request that a person reviews, and the listing lands on the Free plan.
New: you now hear back about a claim request by email either way. Approval confirms the listing is yours, points at the setup guide, and mentions that anything neighbors had already sent about the listing is now sitting in your inbox. A turn-down explains why, and every reason invites a reply if you believe the business is yours.
New: pressing "That's mine" while signed out now asks for an email and password right there, creating your account and filing the request in one step. Picking your listing before signing in no longer makes you pick it a second time after.
Fixed: the claim links in our emails returned "page not found" when the code was missing or mistyped. They now land on the claim page, which also offers the listing search for anyone who never had a code.

Pick a plan where it makes sense

New: creating a listing now starts with a choice: claim the one that already exists, create a free one, or start on Plus or Pro. The paid plans introduce themselves up front instead of after you've already finished a free listing.
New: the create wizard ends with a step that lays out what Plus and Pro would add to the listing you just built, and you can buy right there. The listing saves before checkout opens, so heading to payment can never lose your work.
Improved: Get Listed now opens as a set of direct routes (claim, create, post an event, and more), with the full pitch still underneath for anyone weighing it. Routes that need an account offer sign-up in place instead of bouncing through a login page, and pricing sits near the top of the page instead of below the testimonials.

Changing plans is one motion, in both directions

New: upgrading from Plus to Pro no longer asks for your card again or creates a second subscription. Your existing subscription becomes Pro, Stripe charges the prorated difference to the card on file, your billing date stays put, and the confirmation states the exact charge. Any per-listing plans Pro covers are stopped automatically at the end of what you've paid for.
New: downgrading from Pro to Plus is now a real option. You keep Pro until the end of the period you've paid for, then move over with nothing charged today, and you can call it off any time before then.
Changed: Plus and Free cover one listing, so when Pro ends, extra listings come off the directory rather than riding a plan that no longer covers them. They're kept, not deleted, and upgrading brings them back; if you have several, you choose which one stays.
Improved: your plan and billing page now opens with your plan and what it covers, counted from your account, and names any listings a per-listing plan does not cover. Your card and receipts open in Stripe's own billing portal, and TownVue never stores card details.

Coupons that work at the counter

New: business coupons are now a full system. Every offer gets its own code and a printable page you can hand out, post, or text to anyone; it carries both TownVue's mark and your business details, so staff can verify it at the counter.
New: upload your own coupon design and it replaces the standard layout.
New: on Pro, a coupon can be scheduled to start on a future date, and you can run as many offers at once as you like; Plus runs one at a time.
New: prints and "email me this coupon" are counted in your analytics alongside views.
New: as an offer nears its end date, you get a reminder five days out, and neighbors who favorited your business get a heads-up that it's ending.

Your listing, your web address

New: on Plus and Pro you can now choose the words in your listing's web address. A short code at the end keeps every address unique, and every previously shared link keeps working.

Analytics that answer more

New: a new dashboard tile counts visits sent to your listing by AI assistants (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, and others), and it works retroactively over the visits already recorded. Part of Pro's advanced analytics.
New: Pro can export analytics as a CSV and look back over full history; other plans see the most recent 90 days.
Fixed: the "What did you change?" box on the business edit form now feeds a change history you can open on your listing, alongside the entries TownVue records automatically, on plans that include it.

Paid event and experience listings are a single payment

Fixed: buying a paid listing set up a monthly subscription, so a one-off event kept charging you every month until you found the cancel button yourself. It is now a single payment, and one payment creates exactly one listing credit.
New: paid event and experience purchases now generate a proper receipt, so they appear with everything else in your billing history.
New: because experiences have no dates of their own, a paid experience listing now runs for a stated 90 days, and we email you before it ends with one click to keep it up. Events are unchanged: the listing is spent when the event has passed, and one booked months ahead can no longer be taken down before it happens.
Improved: Plus's included paid listing is counted per calendar month, so it comes back on the 1st, and a finished listing you switch off frees its credit immediately. Both were true and unstated; now the forms, the paywall, and the FAQ all say so.
Improved: the paywall now recognizes who's reading it. A subscriber sees their own plan, whether this month's included listing is spent, their own rate with the list price struck through, and when the included one returns, instead of the same pitch a stranger gets.

Your first free listing is reviewed. After that, post freely

Changed: free events, free experiences, and Trading Post listings used to be read by a person every single time. Now only your first one is; once it's approved, everything you post after it goes live the moment you post it. Paid plans skip review entirely.
Fixed: a listing waiting for review used to show a warning that it was inactive and hidden, seconds after telling you it had been submitted. It now says plainly that it's waiting for review and that nothing is wrong.

Events are easier to post

Changed: the rule that an event had to start at least 15 minutes in the future is gone. Posting something that starts right now works.
Fixed: an event with several dates takes its schedule from the dates you entered, and form errors now name the field that needs attention.

Fixed: links shared to Facebook, Messenger, and texts now show a branded TownVue card instead of a washed-out, cropped logo. Coupon pages carry their own share card, using your uploaded design when there is one.
Fixed: pages opened inside Facebook's in-app browser were clipped on the right edge on some phones.

Clearer where it counted

New: the plan cards and the comparison table now explain their own jargon: tap or hover any marked term (AI-ready FAQs, service-area towns, Visibility Kit, and the rest) for a plain-language note.
Improved: the pricing FAQ leads with what's free, since free-to-attend events and experiences cost nothing to post on any plan, and it finally answers what the Trading Post costs: nothing.
Changed: linking an event, experience, or Trading Post post to your business listing is free on any plan when the listing is free to attend; one that charges admission comes with Plus. Linking also now confirms the business is actually yours.
Improved: signed in, the Pricing page shows the plan you already hold and offers Manage instead of trying to sell it to you again.

v2026.08.06 (August 6, 2026): Emails that work for you, and email reach in your analytics

Your analytics now count email reach

New: every time your business, event, or experience is featured in a TownVue email (the Thursday Weekly Picks, the Monthly Local Round-Up, favorites updates, and event reminders), it now counts as a view in your analytics dashboard. That reach was always real; now you can see it.
New: when a reader clicks from one of those emails through to your listing, the click is tracked and included in your engagement numbers.
New: favorite an event and you'll get a reminder email the morning before it happens, with the time, place, and a link to the details. Several saved events on the same day arrive as one email.
New: if an event you favorited is cancelled by its organizer, you now get a clear cancellation notice instead of a vague "no longer active" note.
New: both are controlled from the notification settings in your account, and every email keeps its one-click unsubscribe link.
New: about a week after joining, new members get a one-time email pointing at the Getting Started guide with the quickest wins left to try. Business owners get the same for their listing's Setup Guide.

For business owners

New: when neighbors favorite your listings, you'll know: a weekly email tallies new favorites across your businesses, events, experiences, and Trading Post items. Counts only; we never share who.
New: a customer question that sits unanswered for three days now triggers one friendly reminder, so it never slips through.
New: three days before a free trial converts, you'll get an email with the exact end date, the amount your card will be charged, what your listing did during the trial, and a link to manage or cancel.
New: if a payment fails, we tell you right away: your listing stays live while the charge retries.
New: cancelling now comes with a confirmation email, so you know no further charges are coming and that everything you built stays saved if you ever want to return.

Free listings say thank you

New: posted a free event, a garage sale, or a free Trading Post item? The day after it wraps up, we say thank you.
New: other Trading Post listings get a heads-up a week before the 60-day limit, with a nudge to mark items sold or plan a repost.

Fixes and polish

Fixed: the security notice email sent when a business listing is claimed could show raw template placeholders instead of the business name. It now renders correctly.
Improved: the Pricing and Get Listed pages now spell out the customer emails that come with a subscription, including fan notifications, event reminders, and email reach in your analytics.

v2026.08.05 (August 5, 2026): Left checkout partway? Your spot is saved

Pick up where you left off

New: if you start a listing subscription checkout and don't finish, TownVue now saves your spot. You'll get a short reminder email with a link that reopens checkout right where you left off; no charge is made until you complete it.
New: backing out of checkout now lands on a page that confirms nothing was charged, recaps what a listing includes, and offers a one-click way to resume when you're ready.
New: every reminder email includes a one-click unsubscribe link, and the reminders stop automatically the moment you subscribe.

v2026.08.04 (August 4, 2026): A truthful click-through rate, smarter signups, and fixes

Your click-through rate is now the real thing

Improved: the click-through rate in your analytics dashboard and the monthly Business Brief now measures what it always should have: how often people click your listing after seeing it in TownVue search results. The old number compared all listing views (from Google, town pages, direct links, and more) against search appearances only, which could produce rates far above 100%.
New: because click tracking starts fresh on August 4, 2026, a short note in your dashboard and the Business Brief explains why the number may start small and build over time. The dashboard note can be dismissed once you've read it.

Smarter signups

New: signing up with an email address now checks that the address can actually receive mail. Typos, disposable addresses, and dead domains get a friendly message with a suggestion to correct it or sign up with your Google account, and when we can spot the typo we suggest the fix ("Did you mean brian@gmail.com?").

Fixes and polish

Fixed: the favorite heart disappeared into its white circle on directory pages after you favorited something. It now fills in red as intended.
Fixed: the Trading Post edit form showed two Price fields, and changing the one in the Pricing section could be silently ignored. There's now a single Price field next to the free-item toggle.

Know when your favorites change

New: when something you've favorited changes, you now get one tidy email that says exactly what happened: a price drop, an item marked sold, a new date, updated hours, new photos, and more. Changes made around the same time are bundled into a single email instead of arriving one by one.
New: when a business you've favorited posts a new event, you get an email with the event name, date, and a link to the details. Several events posted together arrive as one email.
Improved: these emails work for every favorite type: businesses, events, experiences, Trading Post items, and community posts.

Email controls that do what they say

Improved: the notification toggles in your account now fully control the favorites emails; switch one off and that email stops.
New: every favorites email includes a one-click unsubscribe link.
Improved: the notification settings list was tidied up; a "New Events in Your Area" option that was never active has been removed.

v2026.07.31 (July 31, 2026): A getting-started guide for your account, and a warmer welcome

Your own getting-started guide

New: a step-by-step Getting Started guide now lives in your account. Eleven short steps walk through what you can do on TownVue: set your location, heart the businesses you love, find events and experiences, ask a business a question, post a free community event, sell or give away items in the Trading Post (garage sales included), pick your public name, follow along in Community, and tune your email preferences. Steps check themselves off as you go, and anything that doesn't apply can be skipped.
New: until the guide is done, a small progress bar at the top of the site shows how far along you are and takes you back to it. Dismiss it anytime and it stays hidden for 30 days.

State pages, redesigned around what you actually use

Improved: your state's page now gets to the point. Live events, experiences, and the full town list moved up right after the top of the page, and the long stretch of promotional sections was consolidated into a single "your free account" overview. Same sign-up, same town links, a lot less scrolling.
Improved: the "Own a local business?" section now leads with the 7-day free trial.

Community

New: the formatting toolbar in the post editor now floats at the top of the screen while you write, so you can format a long post without scrolling back up.

Our security rating

New: TownVue is independently security-rated by SecurityScorecard. The green "A" badge in the footer links to our live scorecard.

v2026.07.28 (July 28, 2026): Edit your listing right on the page, plus a setup guide to get the most from it

Edit your listing without leaving it

New: business owners can now edit most of their listing directly on the listing page. Look for the Edit link beside your description, specialty, pricing, service area, phone, email, website, and menu link: click it, make the change, and save on the spot. No trip through the full edit form.
New: anything you haven't filled in yet shows a private "Add a description" or "Add a phone number" prompt that only you can see. Visitors always see a clean page.
New: the same in-place editing works on event pages (description, schedule, preparation notes, restrictions, price details, and organizer contact info) and experience pages (description, guide bio, preparation notes, restrictions, price details, and contact info).
New: service areas are now set with a city search. Type a town, pick it from the suggestions, and it's added as a chip; your listing then shows the towns you serve.
Improved: buttons across the listing pages have a cleaner, modern look, including the favorite button, the FAQ editor, and the QR code buttons.

A setup guide for business owners

New: a step-by-step Setup Guide now lives in your account. It walks through 16 steps that get the most out of your listing, from your description, categories, and attributes to FAQs, photos, a showcase video, pricing, your menu or services link, and asking customers to heart your business.

Search as you type

New: the business, events, experiences, and trading post directories now search as you type. Enter at least three characters and pause briefly; results update on their own, and clearing the box brings everything back.
Fixed: typing a search on the experiences page and pressing Enter did nothing. It now searches like the other directories.

Event and experience fixes

Fixed: editing an event no longer erases its organizer information, and the edit form now includes organizer name and website fields.
Fixed: when editing an event, its previously selected features now show as checked instead of appearing blank.

v2026.07.23 (July 23, 2026): Events on multiple dates, and garage sale form polish

Events that run on more than one date

Fixed: an event that runs on several dates (like a monthly cruise-in or a seasonal series) now keeps showing up in search for as long as any of its dates is still upcoming.
Improved: these events now show their next upcoming date in search results and on their card, instead of an earlier date that had already passed.
New: event cards and listings now flag when an event runs on multiple dates, with a "+N more dates" note.
New: the event detail page now lists every date and marks which one is next, and it no longer shows a confusing "duration" that spanned the whole series.
New: you can now view, add, and remove an event's dates while editing it, not just when you first create it.

Garage sale and Trading Post listings

New: the listing description field now shows a live character count as you type, so you can see how close you are to the 2,000-character limit.
Improved: the garage sale date-and-time fields have a cleaner, more modern look.

v2026.07.20 (July 20, 2026): Claim the listing that's already yours

We'll help you find your listing

New: plenty of local businesses are already on TownVue before their owner ever signs up. If your email address looks like it belongs to one of our listings, we'll now point it out to you and offer to hand it over. You'll see the suggestion on the home page, on your town and state pages, and in the business directory.
New: when you're viewing a listing that looks like yours, a private note now appears at the top with a link to claim it. Only you can see it. Nothing about it is visible to anyone else browsing that listing.
New: not yours, or not interested? Close the suggestion once and we won't bring it up again.
New: a new "Find my business" page lets you search TownVue by name and claim your listing. Start typing and pick yours from the list, with the town shown next to each one so you can tell similarly named businesses apart.
New: if we already matched a listing to your email, it's waiting for you at the top of that page.
New: if your business is listed but someone has already claimed it, the page says so and points you to support rather than leaving you guessing.
New: if it genuinely isn't on TownVue yet, you can create it from the same page.
New: "Already listed? Claim it" now sits alongside "Create Your Listing" on the Get Listed page, so you don't end up paying for a second listing for the same business.
New: the add-a-business form and the claim-code page both offer to search for your existing listing first.
New: you can tell us you own a business while creating your account, and we'll take you straight to finding your listing instead of dropping you in the directory.
New: when a listing is claimed, we now email the business address on file to say so. If it wasn't you or someone on your team, reply and we'll reverse it.

Fixes

Fixed: after subscribing, you're now taken straight to the listing form. Previously you were returned to the Get Listed page, which made it look like the payment hadn't gone through.
Fixed: if you already have a TownVue account and enter that email and password on the sign-up page, we now sign you in instead of showing an error.
Fixed: "Sign in" links on the sign-up page, and on business, event, experience, and community pages, led to a page that didn't exist. They now go to the sign-in page.
Fixed: "Post an Event" on the Get Listed pricing card sent you to business listing checkout instead of the event form.

v2026.07.13 (July 13, 2026): Faster pages and a better Weekend Picks email

Faster page loads

Improved: state, home, directory, and listing pages now load noticeably faster. We changed how fonts and icons load so the main content of the page appears sooner, and listing photos are now served at a right-sized, optimized resolution instead of the full original file.

A more balanced Weekend Picks email

Improved: the "Your Weekend Picks" email now spreads its events across Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, instead of letting a busy Friday fill the whole list.
Improved: if nothing has been posted near you for the upcoming weekend yet, the email now shows a short note with ways to find what's on and add a local listing, rather than an empty section.

v2026.06.30 (June 30, 2026): More holiday guides, and a shortcut to holiday events near you

More holidays, showing up sooner

New: holiday event pages now cover 13 holidays. We added Valentine's Day, Easter, Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, alongside the existing 4th of July, Halloween, New Year's Eve, St. Patrick's Day, and Memorial Day.
Improved: each holiday's page starts appearing about two months ahead now, so there's more time to plan around it.
Improved: we broadened how we recognize holiday events, so more of the relevant parades, festivals, and celebrations get gathered onto each page automatically.
New: the Events page now has an "Upcoming holidays" list right under the calendar. When there are 4th of July, Halloween, or other holiday events happening near you, you'll see a one-tap shortcut to just those events. A holiday only shows up when there are matching events in your area, so anything listed is worth tapping.

v2026.06.21 (June 22, 2026): A redesigned Community page, Garage sales, a smoother Trading Post, and faster listing pages

Find free and family-friendly things to do near you

New: every city with enough going on now has a "Free things to do" and a "Family things to do" page, pulling together the free or family-friendly events and experiences happening there. Find them at /in/{city}/free-things-to-do and /in/{city}/family-things-to-do.
New: each page opens with a short, locally written summary of what's on offer and stays current as new events and experiences are added.
New: these pages now read like a guide: the top 10 things to do are laid out as numbered entries with a photo, a heading, and a short write-up, followed by the rest as cards. The "this weekend" event pages use the same layout.

Holiday event guides for your city

New: cities now get holiday event pages, like "4th of July events in {city}," that gather the fireworks, festivals, and celebrations happening around the holiday. They cover July 4th, Halloween, New Year's Eve, St. Patrick's Day, and Memorial Day, appear automatically as the holiday approaches, and use the same guide-style layout.
New: each holiday page opens with a short, locally written summary of what's happening for that holiday in your city.

A cleaner, more useful Community feed

New: the Community page has a fresh, immersive look that matches the redesigned directory, with bigger article cards, a featured band up top, and a sidebar for browsing.
New: filter the feed by section, including TownVue Editorial, News & Updates, Deals & Offers, New Arrivals, Events, Tips & How-To, Behind the Scenes, and Community & Causes.
New: a "By Industry" list groups posts into Food & Drink, Shopping & Retail, Home & Property, Health & Wellness, Beauty & Personal Care, Professional Services, Arts & Culture, Pets & Animals, and Local Life, so you can find posts from the kinds of businesses you care about.
New: "Popular this week" highlights the posts neighbors are reading and talking about right now.

Follow and save

New: follow an author or a business to keep up with their posts, then use the "Following" filter to see just those.
New: save any post with the bookmark button and pull up everything you've saved with the "Saved" filter.
New: when someone you follow publishes a new post, we'll email it to you. You can manage or turn off these emails anytime under your account's notification preferences.
New: search the community by title, author, or business right from the top of the feed.

Post a garage sale in the Trading Post

New: "Garage Sale" is now its own listing type in the Trading Post, next to Item, Vehicle, and Home. It's free to post and goes live right away. Set the date and time your sale runs and the exact address or place, and neighbors nearby will find it.
Fixed: when you create or edit a Trading Post listing, picking an address from the search now reliably fills in the city, ZIP, and map location, including for city and place results that used to leave the ZIP blank.

Weekend Picks shows what's actually on this weekend

Fixed: the "Your Weekend Picks" email now lists events that genuinely fall on the upcoming weekend, with the weekend date shown. Long-running and recurring listings no longer slip in showing an old start date.

Listing maps load when you want them

Improved: the map on event, business, experience, and Trading Post detail pages now loads when you select "Show interactive map," so pages open faster. The "Get Directions" link is always available.

Smaller fixes

Improved: the "What would you like to post?" screen now lays out all four options evenly.
Fixed: the "Create Free Account" banner on the directory pages now reads correctly on phones.
Fixed: logging in (or creating an account) from the Community page and other pages now returns you to the page you were on, instead of dropping you on the business directory.
New: signed-out visitors see a "Get it in your inbox" prompt on the Community page explaining that a free account lets them follow people, save posts, and get local stories by email.

v2026.06.19 (June 19, 2026): Redesigned directory pages for businesses, events, experiences, and Trading Post

A consistent, immersive look across every directory

New: the business, events, experiences, and Trading Post directory pages have all been rebuilt around the same immersive design, with a shared header, location bar, and filter pills, so moving between them feels like one connected experience.
Improved: every listing card has a cleaner, more consistent layout with its own photo, so the four directories now mirror each other instead of each looking different.

Events open on a calendar by default

New: the events directory now opens on the Agenda view, a month calendar paired with a list of what's coming up, so you can see the shape of the month at a glance. You can still switch to a plain List or to the Map at any time, and your choice is remembered.

Trading Post: find free stuff and garage sales fast

New: the Trading Post now has quick filter pills for Free stuff and Garage sales, alongside For sale, Vehicles, and Homes, so the most-searched categories are one tap away.

Experiences show more at a glance

Improved: experience cards now surface the listing's key details right on the card, so you can tell experiences apart without opening each one.

v2026.06.17 (June 17, 2026): A redesigned homepage, a reimagined Pricing page, and a new coverage map

A brand-new homepage

New: the TownVue homepage has been rebuilt around a single idea, everything local in one place. A clean, centered hero lets you set your location once and jump straight into the local businesses, events, experiences, and Trading Post listings for your area.
New: a "What's new around you" section surfaces recent community posts from your area right on the homepage.
Improved: the header is now consistent across the site and aware of whether you're signed in. Signed out, you get "Log in" and "Create Free Account"; signed in, you get "Log out" and a direct link to your account.
Fixed: logging out now returns you to the page you were on, instead of always dropping you on the business directory.

Pricing, reimagined

New: the Pricing page has been completely redesigned to show exactly what your $10 a month gets you, grouped the way it actually helps: getting found nearby, Google and AI search, the tools and dashboard, and how TownVue keeps promoting you.
New: a clear three-plan layout (a $10/month business listing, pay-per-listing events and experiences, and an Unlimited Annual plan), plus an honest side-by-side comparison with a boosted Facebook post and a "what $10 a month really costs" breakdown by day, week, month, or year.
New: real member quotes, a step-by-step "getting listed takes less than 10 minutes," and a 15-day money-back guarantee, all in one view.
Updated: Trading Post pricing is laid out simply: free to post giveaways, a flat fee to list items for sale, or unlimited with the annual plan.

Coverage is now the Towns directory

New: the old coverage page is now the Towns directory at /towns, redesigned to show where TownVue is live at a glance: how many states and towns are covered, the areas with the deepest coverage right now, and an A to Z list of every state. Old /coverage links send you here automatically.
Improved: every state page now uses the new immersive design, not just the busiest states, so whatever state you land on looks polished and consistent.

A bolder look for state pages; Create your free account right on the page

New: state landing pages have been redesigned from the ground up into a bold, color-blocked layout that lays out everything TownVue offers (local businesses, events, and experiences) and makes it obvious how to get started. The events and experiences shown are pulled live from that state, each with the listing's own photo.
New: you can now sign in or create your account with Google, right from the login and registration pages. Select "Continue with Google," choose your Google account, and you're in, with no separate password to remember. Signing in with your email and password works exactly as before
New: you can now create a free account directly on the state page. Enter your email, ZIP, and a password, and your account is created right there, no separate sign-up page and no waiting. A spinner shows while the account is being created, then a confirmation appears in place with quick links to start browsing local businesses and upcoming events.
New: the ZIP you enter at sign-up sets your area automatically, so the first directory and events pages you open are already centered on your community.
Improved: every "Create Free Account" button on the page now opens the sign-up form in place instead of sending you off to a separate page.
New: the page now includes real photos, the people behind TownVue and a local business owner, so it feels like the local community it serves rather than stock imagery.

New: the footer has a new look on every page, with the TownVue wordmark, the "Everything Local. One Place." tagline, quick links, social links, and a "Download on the App Store" button so you can grab the iOS app from anywhere on the site.

For business owners: redesigned Claim and Get Listed pages

New: the Claim Your Listing and Get Listed pages have been rebuilt from the ground up to show exactly what a TownVue listing does for you: where you show up (the web, the map, Google, and AI search like ChatGPT), the built-in analytics, messaging, and marketing that come included, and a live look at what a finished listing actually looks like.
New: clear pricing in one place: $10/month for a business listing, $10 per event or experience (discounted for subscribers), and an Unlimited Annual plan for unlimited events and experiences, all backed by a 15-day money-back guarantee.
Improved: both pages now answer the questions owners ask most, show real owner reviews, and make getting started a single tap, so you can decide with everything in view.

Business Brief: a fresh tip every month

New: the monthly Business Brief now opens with two rotating Tips of the Month, practical ideas for getting more out of your listing, plus a Seasonal Focus section written specifically for that month (what to update, what to highlight, what customers are looking for right now).
Improved: the per-business performance card has been reformatted to read more clearly, and the dashboard link now takes you straight to your account analytics.

Local Roundup: redesigned

Updated: the monthly Local Roundup has a refreshed layout that flows through local businesses worth knowing, events happening over the next 30 days, experiences near you, and a couple of posts from the TownVue blog.
New: business rotation, so the businesses featured in your area never repeat two months in a row. Each month surfaces a different set of local spots to get to know.
Updated: events in the Roundup are now scoped to the next 30 days, so everything you see is genuinely coming up soon.

Weekend Picks: a small ask

Updated: refreshed the header copy so it's clear at a glance what's inside.
New: a friendly note suggesting that if you visit one of the featured spots, you let them know you found them on TownVue. It helps local owners see that being listed brings real neighbors through the door.

Newsletters now ship directly from TownVue

Improved: every newsletter footer now carries a proper unsubscribe link plus the matching List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers that Gmail and Yahoo's bulk-sender rules expect. If your mail client shows an "Unsubscribe" button next to the sender's name, it now works on TownVue newsletters with a single tap.
Improved: newsletters include a plain-text version alongside the HTML, which spam filters look for. Small but real deliverability boost.
Updated: when you click the unsubscribe link in a newsletter footer you'll see a confirmation page first, and a one-click "Re-subscribe" option in case you tapped it by mistake.

Faster preview for owners

Updated: the unsubscribe and re-subscribe pages render instantly without requiring you to log in first, so you can manage your preferences directly from any inbox link.

Event times now display in the venue's time zone

Fixed: all events from venues outside the Eastern time zone were showing in Eastern time regardless of where the event actually took place. A 7:00 PM concert in Los Angeles was showing as 10:00 PM; a 5:00 PM festival in Honolulu was showing as 11:00 PM. Every event time now displays in the venue's own time zone, on detail pages, list cards, agenda views, the calendar grid, search results, the homepage, town pages, business and experience cross-references, and the My Events dashboard.
Updated: the "Today" / "Tomorrow" / "This Weekend" / "This Week" badges and date groupings now bucket events by the venue's calendar day instead of the server's. A 7:00 PM Friday event in Pacific time will correctly group with Friday, not Saturday.
Updated: the "Past Event" banner on detail pages and the "Past Events" count on My Events now flip at the venue's local midnight, not the server's.
Updated: when editing an event and you change the State (e.g. fixing a typo or correcting the venue), the time you typed stays the time you typed; TownVue handles the underlying time-zone math so you don't have to.

Calendar subscriptions now show venue-local times

Updated: when you subscribe to a TownVue city .ics feed in Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Outlook, events now arrive anchored to their venue's time zone. A Hawaii event subscribed from a New York device shows as 5:00 PM Hawaii (the venue's clock), not as 10:00 PM Eastern. Each calendar feed carries the daylight-saving-time rules for every venue zone it includes, so events stay correct across the spring/fall transitions automatically.

For search and AI engines

Updated: every event detail page's structured data (Event JSON-LD) now includes the venue's UTC offset on startDate and endDate (e.g. 2026-07-04T19:00:00-04:00), the format Google's Rich Results validator prefers. This makes the event time unambiguous in search snippets and AI engine responses.

v2026.05.27 (May 27, 2026): Subscription renewal fix, community linking, install as app, and richer owner analytics

Fixed

Fixed: some business subscriptions were not being recognized as active after their monthly renewal, even though Stripe had successfully charged the customer. Affected owners could see Business Brief as locked in their notification preferences and, in some cases, their business listing was being auto-deactivated despite continuous payment. Local subscription state now stays in sync with Stripe through renewals, and all known affected accounts have been reconciled.
Fixed: notification emails for new questions on a listing now go to the public contact email on the listing (the address customers see when they visit your business, event, or experience page), not the account email of whoever owns the listing. If you used different addresses for "account login" vs "where I want customers to reach me," question alerts will now land at the public-contact address.

Performance

Improved: state landing pages, town pages, the homepage, and the community feed now load faster. Stylesheets that weren't needed on those pages have been removed, and a few heavier ones now load without blocking the first paint. Most noticeable on mobile and slower connections.

Install TownVue as an app

New: when you visit TownVue a few times in Chrome or Edge (on Android or desktop), a small prompt appears at the bottom of the page offering to add TownVue to your home screen or taskbar. Tap Install once and TownVue opens like a native app, in its own window without the browser address bar. Doesn't change anything about how the site works for people who don't install. iPhone users continue to see the existing "Open in app" banner pointing to the App Store.

Community: mention listings in your posts

New: an Insert TownVue listing button on the community post editor. Search any business, event, or experience by name and tap a result to drop a link into your post at the cursor. Add as many as you like; each one connects your post to that listing's page.
New: business, event, and experience detail pages now show a Mentioned in Community Posts card listing every post that links to that listing in its body. Sits next to the existing Community Posts card, which still shows posts authored as that listing.
New: the See All buttons on both community cards now go to dedicated filtered pages: /community/by/{listing} for posts authored as the listing, and /community/mentioning/{listing} for posts that reference it.
Updated: the My Posts page (/community/my-posts) now has a Live / Scheduled column showing when each post went live or when it's scheduled to publish, matching the admin view.

Browse states from the coverage map

Updated: every state listed in the Currently Live In section on the Coverage page is now a tappable pill linking directly to that state's landing page. States in the Expanding Next section stay non-clickable until they go live.

For search and AI engines

New: detail pages for businesses, events, experiences, trading post items, and community posts now emit VideoObject structured data whenever the listing has a showcase video. This lets Google index your videos and display video thumbnails alongside your listing in both regular and Google Video search results.
New: a dedicated video sitemap at /sitemap-videos.xml, linked from the main sitemap index, so search engines can discover every listing video on TownVue without having to crawl each detail page individually.
Works automatically for YouTube, Vimeo, and direct-upload videos. Thumbnails are derived from each source so no extra setup is needed by the listing owner.

New: the per-business analytics card in the monthly Business Brief newsletter now also shows your listing's Search Impressions (how many times your listing appeared in a TownVue search result over the last 30 days), Click-Through Rate (what percentage of those impressions turned into someone clicking through to your listing), and Engagements (total favorites, phone taps, website clicks, and direction taps combined; a single headline number for "how many people did something meaningful with my listing this month"). Sits alongside the existing detail-view and per-action totals.

Q&A on listings

New: when a business, event, or experience owner answers a question you asked on their listing, you'll now get a notification email with the question and the answer side by side, plus a link back to the listing.

Events Happening (weekly Thursday): now focuses on the upcoming long weekend, listing events happening Friday through Monday, including multi-day festivals that overlap that window. The businesses section now prefers the business behind a featured event, then fills in with a variety of categories nearby.
Local Roundup (monthly): now leads with six businesses near you, with paid subscribers listed first and the rest selected for category variety. Adds two community articles tailored to your area.
Business Brief (monthly): for business owners. Now includes a 30-day analytics card for every business you own, with detail page views, new favorites, phone taps, website clicks, and direction clicks. Adds a "TownVue activity" snapshot showing platform growth (new businesses, events, and community posts this month), engagement (total listing views and favorites this month), and coverage (active businesses and communities served).

For search and AI engines

New: every public listing detail page now has a Markdown alternate at the same URL with .md appended, for example /Business/Details/maplewood-cafe-42.md. Markdown alternates exist for businesses, events, experiences, trading post items, and community articles. This follows the emerging llms.txt convention so answer engines and AI agents can ingest TownVue content as clean Markdown instead of scraping HTML.
Community article Markdown alternates preserve the original article structure (headings, lists, links, blockquotes) rather than flattening to plain text.

v2026.05.14 (May 14, 2026): This weekend's events, browse by event type, and fresher town timestamps

This weekend's events, per town

New: every city events page now has an "Events this weekend in {City}" button at the top, linking to a dedicated weekend landing page like /in/columbus-oh/events/this-weekend.
The weekend page lists every event happening between the upcoming Friday and Sunday, including multi-day festivals that started earlier in the week.
New: three curated weekend variants for sharper search match: Free events at /in/{city}/events/free-this-weekend, Family-friendly events at /in/{city}/events/family-friendly-this-weekend, and Live music at /in/{city}/events/live-music-this-weekend. A four-way "All / Free / Family-friendly / Live Music" switcher at the top of any weekend page jumps between them.
For search and AI engines: every weekend page emits structured data scoped to the exact Friday-to-Sunday window, so "this weekend in {City}" and "free events this weekend in {City}" style queries can match precisely.

Browse events by category

New: event-category landing pages at /in/{city}/events/{category} for all 35 event categories: Music & Concerts, Theater & Performing Arts, Festivals & Fairs, Food & Drink, Outdoor & Adventure, Family & Kids, Comedy, Live Music, and more.
New: a "Browse by category in {City}" pill row appears at the bottom of every city events page, showing only the categories that have active upcoming events in that town with a count next to each.
Empty category pages stay hidden from search engines so they don't dilute the main events page.

Listing timestamps now reflect actual activity

Updated: "Listings updated" timestamps on every city landing page (Businesses, Events, Experiences, Trading Post, and the new weekend + category pages) now reflect the most recent meaningful change to a listing in that town, not a pre-computed refresh date.
Sitemap entries for the same pages now carry matching freshness signals, so search engines and AI crawlers see recent activity and re-crawl more often when listings actually change.

Change Notes audit trail for events, experiences, and trading post

New: the edit screen for events, experiences, and trading post listings now includes an optional "Change Notes" field, matching what business listings already had. Note what you updated ("added new photos", "fixed phone number") so you have a running history of changes on each listing.
For owners: when an automated process deactivates a listing because of subscription end or scheduling rules, that reason is now recorded as a Change Notes entry, so support can answer "why is my listing inactive?" without guesswork.

Badge improvements for business owners

Updated: the "Get Embed Code" badge on /Account/Index#badges now generates a smarter embed:
- The badge URL carries a ?ref=badge tag so you can see in analytics how much traffic your deployed badge drives.
- The link includes a rel="me" entity signal, telling search engines that your website and your TownVue listing represent the same business. Combined with TownVue's existing reciprocal link to your site, this strengthens brand recognition in Google and AI search.
New: business listings get an optional Organization JSON-LD snippet to paste alongside the badge. The snippet declares your site and your TownVue listing as the same entity, which helps disambiguate your business in Knowledge Graph results.
New: the badge modal now includes step-by-step install instructions for WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, and Google Sites, so non-technical owners don't need to know HTML to get the badge live.

Stronger review signal for business listings

Updated: business detail pages now emit individual Review structured data (up to 10 most recent ratings) alongside the existing aggregate rating. Google's review-snippet rich results require both, so this gives star ratings a better shot at appearing in search-result snippets and gives AI engines clean per-rating attribution to cite. Reviewer names use each rater's TownVue PublicName; ratings from users without a PublicName set are omitted from the structured data to keep the schema privacy-safe.

New: every event category page (e.g. /in/columbus-oh/events/music-concerts) now has an RSS and JSON Feed for just that category in just that city. Auto-discoverable in the page head, same format as the broader feeds. Useful for venue programmers, live-music newsletters, or anyone who wants a focused subscription instead of the whole town feed.

Behind the scenes

Updated: sitewide structured data now links TownVue's WebSite entity to its Organization entity via a publisher reference, helping search engines treat the brand and the platform as the same business. The Organization logo also now points to the canonical TownVue logo instead of a smaller favicon. The Organization block now also declares topical authority via a knowsAbout array (local business directory, community events, local discovery, local marketplace, etc.), giving Knowledge Graph a clearer picture of what TownVue is.
Updated: the /community entry in the sitemap now carries a real lastmod value computed from the most recent post activity, so search engines see the community feed as actively updated instead of statically published.
Fixed: the per-city events RSS and JSON feeds (e.g. /feed/events/columbus-oh) were silently dropping paid events and any listing whose city/state casing differed from the canonical town record, so a town page that listed 8 upcoming events could surface as only 2 in a feed reader. The feed query now matches the on-page query exactly.

v2026.05.11 (May 11, 2026): Community feed rebuild, near-me filter, and post-page polish

Browse community posts by topic

New: the Community page now leads with a featured band, a topic chip strip, and a magazine-style card grid. The 15 most-used tags appear as one-click chips above the grid; click a chip to filter the feed and click it again (or "All") to clear.
New: a sort menu above the grid lets you switch between Newest, Most liked, and Most discussed. Your selection sticks in the URL so it survives pagination and sharing.
New: the featured band shows up to three Featured posts from the last week. The most recent featured post takes a big hero card with two smaller side cards on wider screens, collapsing gracefully on mobile.

Community feed follows your header location

Updated: the Community page now uses the same location chip in the site header that the rest of TownVue uses, so you set your location and radius once and every page (businesses, events, experiences, trading post, community) filters to your area. No separate ZIP/city input on the Community page.
A status pill in the toolbar shows what's active: "Showing posts near {Your City} within {N} mi" with a "Show all locations" link that drops the geo filter for the community page only.
Posts qualify as "near you" via a three-step location cascade: the post's own service-area cities (any custom radius is rolled in), then any local business, event, or experience the post links to, then the author's own ZIP.
Posts without a specific location also stay visible. They're interlaced with the local results and carry the same Anywhere badge so you can tell at a glance that the article isn't tied to a particular town.

Post-page polish

Fixed: the "Sign in to leave a comment" callout at the bottom of post pages now renders inline. The icon, the Sign in link, and the trailing text sit on one line instead of breaking across three.
Fixed: clicking Sign in from a post page now returns you to that post after sign-in, instead of dumping you on the home page.
Fixed: the meta row under post titles (author, date, tags) no longer splits the user icon from the name or wraps "May 3, 2026" character-by-character when the title is long.

v2026.05.09 (May 9, 2026): Town directory, state landing pages, and a fresh look

Find Your Town

Updated: the Towns directory is now titled "Find Your Town" and previews up to 6 towns per state with their listing count. Bigger states get a "See all towns in {state}" link to the full state landing page, so the directory stays scannable instead of dumping every town on one page.

State landing pages, redesigned

New: every state landing page (/in/state/{code}) now leads with an outline map of the state alongside the hero text. Maps are credited to GIS Geography in small print; the link goes to the source page.
New: "Where TownVue is Active in {state}" section now collapses cleanly even for states with hundreds of towns. The busiest 36 towns are shown above the fold; the rest sit behind a "Show all" disclosure. Every town link still ships in the page so search engines and AI tools see the full list.
Updated: "Local Businesses across {state}" now appears between "Recently added" and the owner section, rendered in the same card format as the rest of the page so businesses get equal visual treatment alongside events and experiences.

Town pages, more useful at a glance

Updated: the events section on town landing pages (e.g. /in/lexington-ky) is now headed "Upcoming events near you" and shows up to 12 events in two rows of 6 instead of the previous shorter list.
Updated: the experiences section is now "Local experiences worth your time" with the same two-rows-of-6 layout.

v2026.05.07 (May 7, 2026): Service-area town pages, calendar feeds, and instant indexing

New: business listings now support an optional menu URL on the edit/create wizard. Restaurants, food trucks, coffee shops, breweries, bakeries, salons with service price lists, and any other business with an offerings page can paste in their menu link (PDF, Google Doc, Square menu page, your own menu page, etc.). Adds a "View Menu" button on your public listing and emits schema.org LocalBusiness.hasMenu so AI tools like ChatGPT and search engines like Google know your business has a menu.
An optional button-label field lets you customize the call-to-action ("Dinner Menu", "Brunch", "Service Pricing", etc.); defaults to "View Menu" when blank.

Service-area businesses now appear on the towns they serve

New: plumbers, contractors, mobile services, and other businesses that configured service areas now appear on the landing page of every town they serve, in a clearly separated "Also serving {City}" section below the local-listings section. Previously these listings only showed up on the landing page of the city where they're physically based.
New: the same surfacing applies to the per-town businesses page at /in/{city}/businesses. Local listings paginate as before, with "Also serving {City}" rendered as a distinct second section below the local set.
Each "Also serving" card carries a small Serving from {their City}, {State} pill so visitors see at a glance that the business is based elsewhere.
Owner stat: when editing a business that has service areas configured, the listing edit screen now shows how many additional town pages the listing is surfacing on. Owners get a concrete view of the reach they're getting from filling out their service-area list.
Search and AI engines see the same signal in the structured data: each business detail page now emits a separate schema.org Service entity in addition to the existing LocalBusiness.areaServed. Service-area cities are now described with full state names and per-city geographic coordinates so engines can model "what is offered, where" precisely.

New: every event detail page now has an "Add to Calendar" button that downloads the event as a standard iCalendar (.ics) file. Works with Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Outlook, and any other standard calendar app.
New: every city events page, for example /in/powell-oh/events, now offers an "RSS" and a "Calendar" subscribe button. Click Calendar, paste the URL into your calendar app's "Add by URL" box, and your calendar will pull in upcoming events from that town as new listings are added.
Multi-occurrence events appear as separate calendar entries, each with its own date and time.
Calendar and RSS feeds are also auto-discoverable in the page head, so feed readers and calendar apps that support auto-detection find them without any manual setup.

RSS feeds for businesses, events, experiences, and community articles

New: RSS 2.0 feeds at /feed/businesses, /feed/events, /feed/experiences, and /feed/community, plus per-city variants like /feed/events/powell-oh or /feed/businesses/powell-oh.
Recently added listings, upcoming events, and new community articles all flow through their respective feeds. Apple News, podcatchers, and feed readers pick them up automatically.
New: JSON Feed 1.1 versions of every RSS feed at the same URL with a .json suffix (e.g. /feed/community.json, /feed/events/powell-oh.json). Identical content as the RSS feeds; AI search engines like Perplexity, Brave Search, Bing, and ChatGPT search parse JSON more reliably than XML, so this gives them a cleaner ingestion path. The format is auto-discoverable via the <link rel="alternate" type="application/feed+json"> tag in the page head.

Instant search-engine indexing

Behind the scenes: TownVue now pings the IndexNow protocol the moment a listing is added or updated. Bing, Yandex, and other participating engines see new and changed listings within minutes instead of waiting for the next crawl, which means quicker discovery for newly added businesses, events, and experiences.

Friendlier "page not found" experience

New: when a link is broken or a listing has been removed, visitors land on a redesigned page with quick links to Businesses, Events, Experiences, and Trading Post, plus a "Browse Towns" shortcut.
Removed individual listings show a clear "page no longer available" message with the same friendly destination tiles, so a stale link from a Google result or a shared post still leads visitors somewhere useful.

Sitemaps split by content type

New: the sitemap is now split into separate files for businesses, events, experiences, trading post, community articles, towns, images, and static pages, with the existing /sitemap.xml acting as an index. Search engines re-crawl only what actually changed instead of re-fetching one giant file, which keeps fresh listings showing up faster in search results.
New: dedicated /news-sitemap.xml for community articles published in the last 48 hours, conforming to Google's news-sitemap spec with news:publication, news:publication_date, news:title, and news:keywords per item. Sends a strong freshness signal to Bing News, Brave Search News, AI engines like Perplexity, and Google's News tab. Inclusion in Google News itself is editorial and not granted automatically by the sitemap, but the markup is the prerequisite for it.

Voice-assistant and AI-engine readability

New: /llms-full.txt compliments the existing /llms.txt with a fuller listing inventory, for AI search engines that prefer a single comprehensive file over a directory.
New: voice-assistant-friendly markup. Detail pages, town and state landings, top picks pages, and community articles now identify which sections of each page are suitable for Siri, Google Assistant, or Alexa to read aloud, using schema.org Speakable structured data.
New: answered customer Q&A on every Business, Event, and Experience detail page now carries richer schema.org markup. Each Q&A item carries a question author, the listing's official Organization as the answer author, and a deep-link URL so AI search engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity can cite specific Q&A items rather than only the page as a whole.
New: community contributors with a public name set now get their own author profile page at /community/by/{name}. The page lists every article they've published, including articles they posted on behalf of a business listing (those carry a small "Posted as {Business Name}" sub-label so the brand-byline context is preserved). Each post adds a ProfilePage + Person JSON-LD signal that AI engines and Google use to attribute content to a real human (a strong E-E-A-T signal). On articles posted under a business byline, the visible attribution becomes "{Business Name} · By {PublicName}" with the second name linked to the author's profile, and the structured data emits both an Organization and Person author so the brand byline stays primary while the human writer also gets credit. Privacy contract is preserved: only PublicName is exposed publicly. Email, real first/last name, and full account ID stay private.
New: owner-acquisition pages /Get-Listed and /Business/Claim now ship a full structured-data bundle: WebPage with Speakable selectors for voice-assistant readout, BreadcrumbList, FAQPage mirroring the visible question accordions on each page, plus Service and Offer on the listing-pricing page so AI engines have a clean, citable answer when someone asks "how do I get my business on TownVue" or "how much does TownVue cost." HowTo schema was deliberately skipped; Google deprecated those rich results in 2024.

Subscription reliability fixes

New: a 3-day grace window now sits between a subscription's expiration date and the listing being deactivated. This protects against Stripe webhook delays and time-zone differences from accidentally deactivating a business that is still paying.
New: when a Stripe renewal succeeds for a listing that had previously been auto-deactivated (for example, while a payment retry was in flight), the listing is automatically reactivated on payment success, with an internal audit note recording when and why.

New: Open Graph image dimensions and alt text now ship with every page that has an image. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Slack render larger, sharper preview cards instead of falling back to small thumbnails.
New: community articles carry article:published_time and article:author metadata, so the byline and publication date are visible in shared links.
New: Twitter card metadata is now tagged with the @townvue handle.
New: the site's sameAs cross-reference profile now includes Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, the Trustpilot review profile, the BBB business profile, and the Crunchbase company profile alongside the existing Facebook and X links. AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity use these cross-references to confirm the business identity when they cite TownVue.

Trust and transparency

New: an About TownVue page lays out who runs the platform, when and where it was founded, the two co-founders (with LinkedIn profiles for verification), the team behind data seeding, what we do, and how we operate. Founders, address, founding date, and team size also flow into the site-level Organization structured data so AI engines and Google's Knowledge Graph can verify TownVue's identity without scraping.
New: an Editorial Standards page documents how content gets onto TownVue, how errors get corrected, and how facts get verified. Three sections covering editorial policy, corrections policy, and fact-checking policy. Honestly framed: TownVue is not a newsroom, and we describe the actual verification chain (owner claim plus Stripe identity, AI-grounded-in-listing-data, admin moderation, reader-flag review) rather than imitating one. Both pages are linked from the footer and listed in the sitemap.
New: RFC 9116 security contact at /.well-known/security.txt tells security researchers exactly how to report a vulnerability and what response time to expect.
New: a classic /humans.txt credits file documents the team, location, and the web standards TownVue follows.
New: /ai.txt makes TownVue's AI access policy explicit in the emerging Spawning ai.txt format. Permissive stance: training, citation, summarization, and AI search are all allowed, with attribution and link-back preferred. Companion to the named-AI-bot rules already in robots.txt; the load-bearing signals stay there, while ai.txt expresses intent at the content-policy level for crawlers that look for it.
New: a public read-only for AI agents and integrators. Exposes businesses, events, experiences, trading-post listings, towns, and categories as clean JSON. No auth, permissive CORS, OpenAPI spec. Lets ChatGPT, Claude, and emerging agent runtimes pull live TownVue data without scraping HTML; the same data stays available everywhere it already was. The API's Terms of Service section on bulk extraction explicitly prohibits unauthorized large-scale data extraction, scraping, or republishing; agents are welcome to query and cite within the limits, but bulk copying isn't.

v2026.05.05 (May 5, 2026): Owner FAQs for AI search, unified cross-references, dynamic pricing

Owner-authored FAQs on listings, now AI-search ready

New: every Business, Event, and Experience listing supports up to 5 owner-authored FAQs that appear directly on the public detail page as an expandable accordion.
New: the FAQs are emitted as schema.org FAQPage structured data, the format ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and other AI search engines actually read when answering questions about local businesses.
New: customer questions you reply to are now also exposed as schema.org QAPage structured data (only answered Q&A pairs are included; unanswered questions stay out of the structured data).
New: owner-only inline editor right on the detail page. View mode shows the public accordion; click "Edit FAQs" to reorder, add, edit, or delete, all without leaving the page or going through the listing wizard.
New: an AI Suggest button drafts FAQs from your listing's own facts (categories, hours, description, attributes, location, pricing). Suggestions skip questions you've already added, never invent details that aren't in your listing, and follow TownVue's brand voice.
Inline delete confirmation replaces browser pop-ups; modern button styling across the editor.

Unified "More from this Host" sections

New: Business, Event, and Experience detail pages now share one consistent "More from this Host" design: colored chip headers per category (Businesses / Events / Experiences / Trading Post) with thumbnail tiles that lift on hover.
The same pattern flows across all three listing types so visitors get a familiar experience whether they land on a business, an event, or an experience first.
Tile layout responds to screen size: 1 per row on phone, 2 on tablet, 3 on desktop.
Events detail pages get this section for the first time; previously they only showed similar/nearby events in the sidebar.

Pricing page redesign

New "AI Search-Ready FAQs" hero feature card alongside Articles and Showcase Video, plus a "Built for AI Search" benefit card explaining how owner FAQs, customer Q&A, meta descriptions, and direct-answer summaries all flow into AI search engines.
New FAQ entry: "How does TownVue help my listing show up in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and other AI search results?", also emitted as structured data.

v2026.05.03 (May 3, 2026): State launch pages, Top picks, and freshness signals

State launch landing pages

New: as TownVue officially launches in a state, that state gets a richer landing page at /in/state/{state}. Pages feature a state-themed hero, animated stats counters, browse-by-type tiles, featured towns and listings carousels, and a frequently asked questions section about TownVue in that state.
New: per-state branding. Each state landing carries its official nickname ("The Buckeye State", "The Lone Star State", "The Sunshine State", etc.) and a state-specific accent color stripe that flows through the page and into social-share previews.
New: per-state social-share previews. When you share a state landing page on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Slack, or iMessage, the preview shows "TownVue is now in [State]" with the state's accent color, not the generic site logo.
New: "Recently added" momentum row and "Popular searches" section on each state landing surface what's new in that state and what local customers are searching for, with anchor links into category pages and town hubs.
New: auto-generated state intro paragraph announces the launch and routes business owners toward listing.

Top picks pages

New: Top picks pages at /in/{city-state}/top/{category} feature up to 10 ranked listings per (city, category) combo, active wherever a category has 5 or more listings.
Rankings blend TownVue user ratings (60%) with recent visitor interest over the past 30 days (40%). Ratings with fewer than 5 reviews are weighted toward the city-wide average so a single review can't lift a listing above well-reviewed peers.
Methodology is disclosed in plain language at the bottom of every Top picks page. No algorithmic secrecy.
Refreshed nightly so rankings stay current as listings, ratings, and traffic shift.

Visible freshness signals

New: "Listings updated [date]" line now appears at the bottom of every town hub, state landing, category page, and content-type sub-page (businesses, events, experiences, trading post).
The date only ticks forward when a user-visible field actually changes, not on every save. Routine admin edits don't make the page look "fresher" than it really is.
Search engines see the same freshness signal in structured data, so pages with recent updates get fresher snippets.

New: browse links across the site now use specific, named anchor text. "Browse all 18 →" becomes "Browse all 18 businesses in Plano, TX →". Same for events, experiences, and trading post sections. Helps both human scanning and how search engines understand each link's destination.

Behind the scenes

State landing pages, town hubs, category pages, and content-type sub-pages now emit CollectionPage, ItemList, and dateModified Schema.org structured data, helping search engines understand the geographic and content hierarchy and surface fresh pages preferentially.
Community articles now emit BlogPosting structured data with proper author Person schema (when the author has set a public name), datePublished, dateModified, and wordCount. Helps articles surface alongside regional news in search results when people search for local topics.
When a business listing has its Facebook Page, Instagram, Google Reviews, Yelp, or other public profile links populated, those links now flow through to structured data so AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity can confirm the business identity across the web. The Business edit wizard's "Social Media & Links" section now explains why this matters.
Intent-driven FAQ entries on town pages now answer "Where can I find restaurants in [city]?" and "What's happening this weekend in [city]?" style questions in addition to the existing site facts.
Em-dash cleanup across town and state page titles for consistency with the rest of the site.

v2026.05.01 (May 1, 2026): Town FAQs, detail-page summaries, and AI search readiness

Town pages now answer your questions

New: every town hub at /in/{city-state} (for example, /in/powell-oh) and every specialized category page (like /in/powell-oh/businesses/restaurants) now ends with a frequently-asked-questions section.
Questions are tailored to the town and the listings actually present: what categories are featured, are there upcoming events, where is the city located, how to add a business listing.
Designed for skim reading: expand the question you care about, ignore the rest.

Cleaner detail-page summaries

New: Business, Event, and Experience detail pages now open with a one-glance factual summary just below the title.
For a business: what kind of business it is, where it's located, today's hours, and any specialty.
For an event: location, date and time, and price (or "free to attend").
For an experience: what kind of experience, who's hosting, and price.
All pulled from the listing's existing data, so summaries update automatically as you edit your listing.

Under the hood

New: dedicated robots.txt rules for AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Apple Intelligence, Common Crawl, and others) so engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity can cite TownVue accurately when they answer questions about local businesses and events. Aggressive crawlers with poor referral value are explicitly blocked.
New: /llms.txt index file lists TownVue's top town hubs, category pages, and main entry points in a single file AI search engines can fetch in one request. Refreshes hourly so it tracks listing growth.
New: structured data on town and category pages now includes FAQPage markup that mirrors the visible accordion, so search engines can surface those answers directly.
New: detail-page structured data adds a disambiguatingDescription field carrying the new factual summary, alongside the owner-authored description.
Improved meta descriptions on detail pages: when an owner's description is sparse, search snippets now fall back to the auto-generated factual summary instead of appearing empty.
Cleaner page titles across town pages.

v2026.04.28 (April 28, 2026): Town landing pages, city intros, and paywall polish

New: Town landing pages

New: every town with active listings now has its own page at /in/{city-state} - for example, /in/powell-oh. The hub page surfaces local businesses, upcoming events, experiences, and trading post listings on one screen, with quick links to dedicated sub-pages for each content type.
New: state directory at /in lets visitors browse TownVue by US state, then drill into towns. Each state card previews the most active towns up front.
New: specialized landing pages for common business categories - /in/powell-oh/businesses/restaurants, /breweries, /plumbers, /dentists, and 100+ others. These pages target high-intent local searches like "restaurants in Powell OH".
New: every town and specialized page features a unique intro paragraph grounded in the actual local listing mix. Generated in the background; never slows down a page load.
New: detail pages for businesses, events, experiences, and trading post items now show a "Discover more in {City}, {State}" section near the bottom with up to six similar local listings.
New: "More in {City}, {State} →" link added next to the address on every detail page so visitors can jump straight to the city hub.
New: the header location chip now auto-syncs to the town or detail page you're viewing, but only when the page is outside your current search radius - your intentional radius choices are respected.
New: all listings on town pages appear in a fresh random order on every cache cycle, honoring the TownVue principle that no listing gets algorithmic preference. Events stay chronological so upcoming events surface first.
Town pages use a clean compact-card grid (image + name + location + price/date) so 4–6 cards per row fit comfortably on desktop.
Section ordering on the city hub adapts to where you came from - clicking "More events in {City}" from an event detail page surfaces events first; same for businesses, experiences, and trading post.

Updated paywalls

The Business, Events, Experience, and Trading Post paywalls now list the same benefits visible on the Pricing page - articles & blog posts, featured showcase video, analytics dashboard, unlimited messaging, and priority support are now spelled out alongside the per-listing perks.
The Unlimited tier on the Business paywall is now framed as "Everything in Business Listing, plus..." so the value over the $10 monthly tier is unambiguous instead of a side-by-side feature parity.
The "this town is just getting started" call-to-action on town pages now lists every way to contribute - list a business, post an event, add an experience, list in the trading post, or share a community post.

SEO improvements

City and state landing pages emit Schema.org CollectionPage, BreadcrumbList, and ItemList structured data so Google understands the geographic + content hierarchy.
Specialized business landing pages (like /in/powell-oh/businesses/restaurants) emit a six-level breadcrumb chain: Home → Towns → Ohio → Powell, OH → Businesses → Restaurants.
Sitemap now includes /in, every state hub, every qualifying town, every content-type sub-page, and every indexable specialized business page, bounded by listing-count thresholds so thin pages stay out.
Paginated town sub-pages now emit <link rel="prev"> and <link rel="next"> for cleaner pagination crawl.
Real-estate trading post listings now emit RealEstateListing structured data instead of generic Product, silencing Google Search Console warnings about missing review/rating fields that don't apply to homes.
Trading post product structured data now includes hasMerchantReturnPolicy and shippingDetails (encoded honestly: returns not permitted, $0 shipping for local pickup) and uses Organization for the brand field per Google's preferred type.
Experience listings now emit Service structured data instead of Product (Service has no recommended review/rating fields, eliminating non-critical warnings on every experience page).

Bug fixes

Fix: clicking "Details" on a card from inside a town page no longer 404s. The Business, Events, and Trading Post card partials previously generated relative URLs that broke when rendered outside their original controllers.
Fix: paid experiences and paid events no longer get filtered out of town landing pages. The earlier filter incorrectly applied the free-listing approval gate to all experience and event types.
Fix: image-counter badges that were unreadable on town card thumbnails are now hidden in town contexts (they remain on the original Index pages where they're useful).
Fix: the tracking ID was misconfigured. Production now reports to the correct measurement ID.

v2026.04.24 (April 24, 2026): SEO enrichment, wizard fixes, and performance tuning

SEO

New: detail pages for businesses, events, experiences, trading post items, and community posts now include rich Schema.org structured data so Google understands each page's ratings, price, location, availability, breadcrumbs, and more.
New: links shared in iMessage, Slack, Facebook, and X now show each listing's own image, title, and description instead of the generic TownVue fallback. Applies to all five detail page types.
Fix: corrected the Facebook page link and removed an invalid property that Google's validator was flagging in our site-wide structured data.
Images newly uploaded to Cloudinary are now named after the listing slug instead of the raw file name (for example, joes-pizza-storefront instead of IMG_4532). Helps Google Image Search. Existing images are unchanged.
New images uploaded to events, experiences, and trading post listings now default to descriptive alt text using the listing name instead of the raw filename.

Wizard fixes (create and edit forms)

Fix: the "Create" and "Save Changes" buttons at the top of the business, event, and experience wizards now actually submit the form. They were silently no-ops in several places.
Fix: when a required field is missing or invalid, the wizard now shows an error list at the top of the page. Previously the errors were hidden, so you just appeared to land back at step 1 with no explanation.
Fix: deleting an image or setting a primary image inside the event, business, or experience edit wizards no longer reloads the page and no longer drops you back to step 1.
Fix: image delete and set-as-primary now work inside the event and experience edit wizards. The server endpoints were missing.
Fix: free-experience creation no longer fails silently for admins. The checkbox was not binding correctly.

UX

Fix: success and error banners, like "Event updated successfully", no longer follow you to unrelated pages. They appear on the page you just edited, and only there.
Fix: on Account → Analytics, the "Community Post" badge in the listings performance table no longer renders black text on a black background.

Performance

Detail pages and favorites queries now issue split database queries instead of one giant join, avoiding slowdowns for listings with many images.

v2026.04.22 (April 22, 2026): Favorite-driven email nudges, favorite polish, and subscription cleanup

New: when something you've favorited is updated with meaningful changes - a price drop, new hours, added photos, cancelled event, coupon posted, a new comment on a community post you follow; you'll now receive an email so you don't miss it.
New: if you haven't favorited anything in a while, you'll now receive a gentle re-engagement email inviting you back. Runs daily.
Fix: Trading Post listings are now favoritable. The heart button has been added to both the browse grid and the listing detail page.
Fix: on Account → My Favorites, trading post thumbnails now display correctly instead of showing a blank image.
Fix: paid experiences no longer incorrectly display the "This Experience Is Not Visible to the Public" banner. The banner was triggering on paid listings that were actually live and visible to the public.
Fix: inactive experiences no longer leak onto the Experiences browse page.
Fix: the favorite button on experiences now matches the style and placement used on businesses, events, and trading posts.
Fix: Account → Subscriptions no longer shows abandoned-checkout placeholder rows that cluttered the page. Unlimited-plan users now correctly see their linked item slots as Active instead of stuck in Incomplete.

The Community page now shows every post in a paginated grid. Previously, only the first featured post and a handful of others were surfaced; additional featured posts were hidden.
Featured posts are highlighted with a badge and a warning-colored border, and are automatically demoted after 7 days so the feed stays fresh.
Pagination now shows a proper page list with a "Showing X–Y of N posts" counter.
Fix: the Sign In button on business, event, and experience detail pages now goes to the login page. It was previously reloading the current listing with stray query parameters instead of navigating to sign-in.
Search engines no longer crawl QR code images or API endpoints, keeping crawl budget focused on real listings.

v2026.04.16 (April 16, 2026): Community editor, listing slugs, and pricing

Community posts: richer editor with styled block embeds for more expressive formatting.
You can now edit the URL slug on your business, event, experience, and trading post listings so the link reads how you want.
Service area selection on trading post listings now validates the area properly.
Homepage surfaces more community content in expanded widgets.
Pricing page promotes articles, blog, and the new showcase video benefits for subscribers.
Animated SVG logos now keep their animations when you upload them.

v2026.04.15 (April 15, 2026): SEO fixes

Detail pages now include canonical URLs so search engines don't split authority across duplicates.
Inactive and past listings are marked noindex and stay out of search results.
Login and sign-in links no longer waste crawl budget.
Community posts are now included in the public sitemap.
Links to TownVue pages shared on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and iMessage now show rich previews with an image and summary (Open Graph / Twitter Card).
The experience details page's "More from this Host" section now shows listing thumbnails.

v2026.04.13 (April 13, 2026): Showcase video, AVIF, and polish

Add a showcase video to any business, event, experience, or trading post listing: a featured video that appears at the top of the details page.
AVIF image uploads are now supported alongside JPG, PNG, and WebP.
Cleaner cards on the community and home pages, with brand-colored share icons.
Claim and Get-Listed pages: layout polish and live stat counters.
New Get-Listed marketing page for cold-outreach traffic to learn about TownVue before signing up.
Claim landing page rewritten with clearer CTAs that route directly into subscription signup.
Sitemap cleanup: added several missing static pages, removed dead entries.

v2026.04.10 (April 10, 2026): Community posts, fully launched

Community posts now have analytics, favorites, search, and draft support.
AI Assist on community posts is disabled until you've entered a title, and defaults to a 300-word length.

v2026.03.24 (March 24, 2026): Business listing fixes

Fix: deleting a photo from a business listing no longer throws an error.
Fix: Account → My Listings now shows your current photos instead of cached older ones.

v2026.03.20 (March 20, 2026): Email validation and subscription alerts

TownVue support receives an email notification whenever a new subscription is purchased.

v2026.03.19 (March 19, 2026): Community post UX and plan visibility

Community post editor: preview, inline validation, and a tone selector to steer AI Assist.
Fix: listing types now display correctly for users on unlimited plans.
AI Assist buttons disable after a successful request so you can't accidentally fire it twice.
Additional SEO optimizations across marketing pages.

v2026.03.18 (March 18, 2026): Newsletters and message emails

Background job assembles newsletter content; Go High Level can now pull it through the API.
You'll receive an email notification the moment someone sends you a message on TownVue.
Password reset email refreshed with updated styling.

v2026.03.12 (March 12, 2026): Smarter email checks on listings

Background sync pulls a curated list of disposable and spam email domains daily.
Dynamic MX lookups - and user-entered business email flag typos and unreachable mailboxes.

Emails are trimmed on save so trailing spaces never block sign-in.
Claim flow has clearer step-by-step instructions.
Login and registration pages autofocus the email / first-name field so you can start typing immediately.

Release Notes

v2026.08.28 (August 28, 2026): Your listing's month, in one number

Free listings now get a monthly Listing Watch

The Business Brief is the Plus and Pro version of that email

v2026.08.27 (August 27, 2026): Claim your listing in about a minute

Prove the listing is yours, without waiting on us

On the cards

v2026.08.19 (August 19, 2026): Three plans, free claiming, and coupons that work at the counter

TownVue now has three plans: Free, Plus, and Pro

Claiming the listing that's already yours is free

Pick a plan where it makes sense

Changing plans is one motion, in both directions

Coupons that work at the counter

Your listing, your web address

Analytics that answer more

Paid event and experience listings are a single payment

Your first free listing is reviewed. After that, post freely

Events are easier to post

Sharing TownVue pages looks right

Clearer where it counted

v2026.08.06 (August 6, 2026): Emails that work for you, and email reach in your analytics

Your analytics now count email reach

For business owners

Free listings say thank you

Fixes and polish

v2026.08.05 (August 5, 2026): Left checkout partway? Your spot is saved

Pick up where you left off

v2026.08.04 (August 4, 2026): A truthful click-through rate, smarter signups, and fixes

Your click-through rate is now the real thing

Smarter signups

Fixes and polish

Know when your favorites change

Email controls that do what they say

v2026.07.31 (July 31, 2026): A getting-started guide for your account, and a warmer welcome

Your own getting-started guide

v2026.07.29 (July 29, 2026): Simpler state pages, a floating editor toolbar, and our security rating

State pages, redesigned around what you actually use

Community

Our security rating

v2026.07.28 (July 28, 2026): Edit your listing right on the page, plus a setup guide to get the most from it

Edit your listing without leaving it

A setup guide for business owners

Search as you type

Event and experience fixes

v2026.07.23 (July 23, 2026): Events on multiple dates, and garage sale form polish

Events that run on more than one date

Garage sale and Trading Post listings

v2026.07.20 (July 20, 2026): Claim the listing that's already yours

We'll help you find your listing

Fixes

v2026.07.13 (July 13, 2026): Faster pages and a better Weekend Picks email

Faster page loads

A more balanced Weekend Picks email

v2026.06.30 (June 30, 2026): More holiday guides, and a shortcut to holiday events near you

More holidays, showing up sooner

v2026.06.21 (June 22, 2026): A redesigned Community page, Garage sales, a smoother Trading Post, and faster listing pages

Find free and family-friendly things to do near you

Holiday event guides for your city

A cleaner, more useful Community feed

Follow and save

Post a garage sale in the Trading Post

Weekend Picks shows what's actually on this weekend

Listing maps load when you want them

Smaller fixes

v2026.06.19 (June 19, 2026): Redesigned directory pages for businesses, events, experiences, and Trading Post

A consistent, immersive look across every directory

Events open on a calendar by default

Trading Post: find free stuff and garage sales fast

Experiences show more at a glance

v2026.06.17 (June 17, 2026): A redesigned homepage, a reimagined Pricing page, and a new coverage map

A brand-new homepage

Pricing, reimagined

Coverage is now the Towns directory

v2026.06.15 (June 15, 2026): Redesigned state pages, sign up without leaving the page, and a refreshed footer

A bolder look for state pages; Create your free account right on the page

A refreshed footer across the site

For business owners: redesigned Claim and Get Listed pages

v2026.06.02 (June 2, 2026): Newsletter content refresh, monthly tips, and a redesigned Local Roundup

Business Brief: a fresh tip every month

Local Roundup: redesigned