The Local Grid · part of The Local Internet
The Local Grid
Every state and its Local Internet sites — one grid.
United States on The Local Core
The shared infrastructure behind The Local Internet.
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
Browse all 50 states and their Local Internet site families in one shared grid.
One Record. One System. Many Surfaces.
See The Local Grid in action
Explore The Local Grid
Connecting National, State and Local Destinations
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Many local destinations, one network (0:00)
The Local Grid is how The Local Internet connects many local destinations into one network.
Each destination is a surface (0:07)
Instead of separate websites, each destination is a surface over one shared system.
Organized by geography (0:13)
Information is organized by geography — national, state, cities and regions, down to what is actually near you.
One shared place system (0:21)
Places like Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Northland come from one shared place system. The Grid connects them; it doesn't redefine them.
The Local Core (0:30)
Underneath sits The Local Core, where each Business Record is held once and owned by the business.
Governed publication (0:37)
A record reaches a destination only through governed publication, with a recorded reason it belongs there. Nothing appears everywhere automatically.
Connected destinations (0:46)
Explore connected destinations organized from national to local, with the full catalog at TheLocalSurfaces.com.
Independent marketplaces remain distinct (0:55)
Independent marketplaces remain distinct from The Local Grid, while connected destinations help organize the broader local network.
The network continues to evolve (1:03)
The network continues to evolve.
Closing (1:06)
The Local Grid. Connecting national, state and local destinations. Explore at TheLocalGrid.com.
Closing screen: The Local Grid · Connecting National, State and Local Destinations · TheLocalGrid.com · Explore The Local Grid
The Bigger Picture
Across Geography. Across Categories. Across Communities.
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Read the transcript
The Local Grid (0:00)
The Local Grid connects local destinations across The Local Internet.
How the network is structured (0:07)
It's organized from national to local — states, counties, cities and communities.
Examples listed on The Local Grid (0:15)
Examples already appear on The Local Grid today.
A second dimension: categories (0:23)
Across states, counties, cities, and communities, local discovery takes many forms. Businesses. Savings. Jobs. Housing. Events. Information. Opportunities.
Live vertical experiences (0:38)
Different destinations. Different needs.
Live and planned (0:48)
Some are live today. Others are planned.
One connected infrastructure (0:55)
One connected infrastructure designed to bring them together — with each Business Record held once in The Local Core.
Independent marketplaces (1:05)
Independent marketplaces remain separate, operating alongside the Grid.
Across (1:14)
Across geography. Across categories. Across communities.
Closing (1:20)
The Local Grid. Explore at TheLocalGrid.com.
Closing screen: The Local Grid · Across Geography. Across Categories. Across Communities. · TheLocalGrid.com
WHAT THE GRID IS NOT
Domains are addresses into experiences. The Grid is the architecture that lets shared records, information and capabilities reach those experiences.
The Grid is part of The Local Internet, not a parallel one.
The experiences are surfaces over one shared system, not sites maintained one by one.
No record is recreated to appear somewhere. There is one record layer.
Domains are addresses into experiences. The Grid is the architecture that lets shared records reach them.
THE ARCHITECTURE
Read top to bottom. Each layer does one job, and none of them duplicates another.
- Layer 1Authoritative records and information
A business, place, article, offer or event, held once.
- Layer 2Shared platform
The capabilities every experience reads and writes through.
- Layer 3Operating rules and workflows
Claiming, verification, review and publication, governed the same way everywhere.
- Layer 4The Local Grid
The connections that let records, places, relationships, destinations and surfaces work together.
- Layer 5Local surfaces
The experiences a person actually opens.
- Layer 6People and businesses
Someone finds the business; the business manages one record.
ONE RECORD, MANY SURFACES
- Step 1One Record
Authoritative, held once, owned by the business.
- Step 2Governed publication
Each placement records the reason it legitimately belongs there.
- Step 3The Local Grid
The connection between the record and the destination.
- Step 4Many legitimate surfaces
The same record, presented in each context.
An authoritative Business Record is not recreated for every site, and an Event, Offer or Article does not need another database row merely because it appears elsewhere. A surface is never on its own a reason to publish something.
Conceptual illustration, not production data. No business, count or placement below is read from the system.
- A state surface
- A city surface
- A storefront surface
- A business discovery surface
- A subject surface
Still one Business Record.
FOLLOW SOMETHING THROUGH THE GRID
Choose an authoritative object and see the kinds of surface it can legitimately reach. The surfaces named are read from the same running system TheLocalSurfaces catalogues, and are representative rather than exhaustive.
One authoritative record, claimed and verified by the business.
Each placement records the reason it belongs there.
The full list of experiences lives on TheLocalSurfaces.com, not here.
HOW IT EXPANDS GEOGRAPHICALLY
- Level 1
National discovery.
- Level 2
State discovery.
- Level 3
City discovery.
- Level 4
What is actually near someone.
Geography is held once, by the existing place system. The Grid does not define states, counties or cities, and no experience here holds a geography of its own.
INFORMATION ON THE GRID
- Step 1Authoritative article or guide
Written once, held once.
- Step 2Publication
Recorded with the reason it belongs on a destination.
- Step 3The Local Grid
Connects it with the places, relationships, destinations and surfaces around it.
- Step 4Information surfaces
TheLocalInformation and other legitimate information experiences.
The information itself lives on TheLocalInformation.com and the other information surfaces — never duplicated here.
WHAT THE NETWORK ACTUALLY MEASURES
- Deployed addresses
- 461
- Hostnames this application resolves and serves, including www forms and alternate names for the same experience.
- Deployed surfaces
- 403
- Distinct experiences behind those addresses. Several addresses can share one.
- User-facing surfaces
- 380
- Deployed surfaces that present records to people, excluding explanation and routing pages such as this one.
- Surface kinds
- 10
- Categories of experience the shared system currently powers.
- Configured destinations
- Reading…
- Rows in the Surface Registry — places a record can legitimately be published to. Some deployed surfaces are ways in and hold no registry row.
- Externally DNS-verified domains
- Not measured
- Not measured. Whether a registrar currently points a name at this application is held outside the system, so it is not counted or inferred here.
Every figure above is counted from the running system when this page rendered, and each says what it counts. A configured destination is not evidence that a domain resolves here, and an owned name is not evidence that anything is deployed.
Held in the namespace, not deployed. Not part of the Grid until it is.
A registry row a record can be published to. Configured does not mean its registrar currently points here.
An experience this application serves at its own address.
EACH LAYER HAS ONE JOB
- Step 1Namespace
Defines roles.
- Step 2Platform + OS
Provide capabilities and operating rules.
- Step 3Grid
Connects deployment.
- Step 4Surfaces
Deliver experiences.
Why do these names exist and what role does each hold?
What capabilities does the system provide?
How are those capabilities governed and operated?
How does the Local Grid fit together?
What is connected?
What user-facing experiences exist?
What is the ecosystem these belong to?
An authoritative object may legitimately appear on several surfaces. Which URL, domain or surface should be canonical for indexing is still an open policy question, and the Grid does not decide it.
CARRIED FORWARD
Retained
Retained — it is the correct idea and it is now the whole page.
Retained, and it is the production architecture rather than a diagram.
Retained, pointing at the existing geography rather than a new one.
Retained, sharpened, and now tested.
Not carried forward
Internal inventory figures from a separate site. Nothing here can verify them, so they are not published as network facts.
APIs, MCP endpoints, agents and machine-to-machine discovery are not operating capabilities of this system today.
Not the record model that runs here, and no visibility or record score exists. Records are claimed, verified and published.
The current destination model has no marketplace object. Subject and intent surfaces are the honest equivalent, and they are catalogued by TheLocalSurfaces.
Local Internet Holdings may be named as the company behind the ecosystem; this page's job is explaining the Grid.
WHERE THIS SITS
How does the Local Grid fit together? is the only question this page answers. The Local Internet is the ecosystem the Grid belongs to.
Part of the six foundations of The Local Internet
- Localzz.com— The MarketplaceEvolving