News feeds
Follow subjects and turn verified recent stories into articles.
A news feed follows one news topic and turns recent, relevant stories into article ideas. Use it in Pro when news in your industry changes what your customers need to know or do, such as new rules, price changes or product launches.
Cost: 25 credits per weekly refresh (including the first one at setup). Articles are 25 credits each.
Why it helps
- You publish timely articles while a story is still fresh.
- Each story is judged for whether it matters to your customers, not just whether it mentions a keyword.
- Each kept story gets a lasting search question behind it, so the article keeps being found after the news cycle ends.
- You can limit the feed to the publishers you trust, or exclude ones you do not.
Before you start
- Pick one topic per feed. To follow another topic, create another news feed.
- Your brand setup should be finished, so stories can be judged against your business.
Set it up
- Open Auto Blog → Feeds and select New feed.
- Choose News feed.
- Optional: type a Feed name. If blank, it is named "News:" plus your topic.
- In News query, type one topic of up to 160 characters, for example "Pokémon game announcements" or "UK employment law changes". Use plain words. Search operators such as
site:are not accepted; use the filters instead. - Optional: open Filters to adjust the settings in the table below.
- Check the cost box (Per refresh: 25 credits, Schedule: On setup, then weekly).
- Select Create feed.
Optional filters
| Filter | What it does |
|---|---|
| Target country | The market used to search for news. It does not guarantee every publisher is based there. |
| Time range | Past 24 hours, Past 7 days (the default) or Past 30 days. A story needs a publication date inside this window. |
| Language | The language of the news search. |
| Include sources | Only collect stories from these websites (and their subdomains). Leave empty to search everywhere. Up to 5. |
| Exclude sources | Never collect stories from these websites. Up to 5. |
Type each website as a plain domain, such as reuters.com, and press Enter. A website cannot be both included and excluded. Filters do not change the price or the weekly schedule.
Because checks run weekly, Past 24 hours only covers the day before each check. Keep Past 7 days for full weekly coverage. Very narrow filters can return few stories or none; outwrite.ai does not quietly widen them.
What happens next
- Search. The first check starts right away and finds recent stories about your topic.
- Reading. Each story's page is opened and its main text is read. A headline alone is not enough.
- Date check. The story must have a publication date that can be verified inside your time range.
- Review. Each readable story is reviewed against your brand and the topic you chose for this feed. It asks: does this matter to your readers, and can your business add something useful?
- Ideas. A kept story becomes an idea with a working title, a reader question, an outline and a search question. The search question is the lasting question behind the story (for example "what the new rule means for small landlords"), not the headline.
Many reports of the same event are grouped, and only the strongest one is kept. An event that already has an article is not written again because another publisher covered it.
The first ideas often appear within minutes. Stories are read in small groups, so a big batch can take a few hours to finish. The feed then checks again weekly.
News ideas are time-sensitive. A story can be written for about a week after it is published (about a month if you chose Past 30 days). After that it is too old to be written as news.
Why a story is skipped
Skipped stories are listed under sources skipped · see why at the bottom of the feed, each with its reason:
| Reason shown | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Not used: published (date), outside your (N)-day time range." | The story is older than your time range. |
| "Not used: a publication date within the last (N) days could not be verified." | No trustworthy date was found on the page. |
| "Not used: this link is a website homepage, not a news article." | The link was a homepage, not a story. |
| "Not used: the destination does not match your source filters." | The link led to a website you excluded or did not include. |
| "Not enough readable source material…" | The page was blocked, behind a login, or too short. |
Stories that were read but judged a poor fit stay in the list as For your review, with the reviewer's reason. Common reasons: the story is unrelated to your readers, it only affects another country or region, it repeats an event already covered, or writing it would mean claiming services you do not offer. You do not need to fix any of these. The feed keeps looking.
How to tell it's working
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Checking sources | Searching and reading stories now |
| Connected | Ready ideas are available |
| Waiting for recent sources | No usable recent story yet. Read the reasons in the list. |
| Needs attention | Something stopped the check. See When a feed needs attention. |
Each story shows its readiness: Reading source, Checking brand fit, Ready to write or For your review. The counter shows how many sources were checked.
Common questions
Can one news feed follow several topics?
No. Each feed follows one news query. Create a separate feed for each topic. (Older feeds with several topics ask you to pick one when you edit them; saved stories are kept.)
Why were there no new ideas this week?
There may have been no recent story that could be read, dated and judged useful for your readers. That is a normal result and is not charged. Check the skipped list for reasons, or broaden your topic or filters.
Does the article copy the news story?
No. The story is the subject. outwrite.ai explains what happened, credits the source and adds why it matters to your readers, backed by its own research.
What if a news page cannot be opened?
Readable stories are saved and the others are retried. You do not need to delete and recreate the feed.
