Our Story
In 2008 a small group of friends who love Sausalito started OurSausalito.com. Some of us are long-time residents, some grew up in Sausalito, others work here. One editor had moved to Sausalito in 2006, and challenges our home-town assumptions.
Our families helped build Sausalito over a century ago, rode the ferries before the coming of the Golden Gate Bridge, worked in the Marinship shipyards during World War II, and were here for the Summer of Love in 1967.
OurSausalito.com grew from those Sausalito roots and our pride in this community. Some great new people have joined our team and others have moved away, but our mission is the same.
For Visitors: We're shredding the old mindset of the Frommer's® and Fodor's®, and building a fresh, new, living online guide that constantly changes to meet your needs.
For Residents: We're a reference site with everything you need to know to maximize the enjoyment of life in Sausalito.
The 9 Reasons We Started OurSausalito.com
1. Traditional guidebooks treat Sausalito as an afterthought to San Francisco. We're the only major all-Sausalito guide, online or in print.
2. Traditional guidebooks only serve visitors. We serve both visitors and residents, with in-depth content for each community.
3. Traditional websites bury 50 Sausalito listings amid 1,500 San Francisco pages . We have triple the Sausalito content of any other site. And nothing else.
4. Traditional websites have no human editor who knows that Tiburon isn't (as Hotels.com and other sites say) 1.7 miles from Sausalito, and that "checking in" at the Alta Mira now has a whole new meaning.
5. Traditional guidebooks say things like Lonely Planet's "A coffee, a quick shopping stroll and a walk along the bayfront are enough to satisfy most day visitors." (1) We know they're wrong, and we're mad as Hell about it.
6. Traditional websites cover Sausalito from New York, LA or somewhere 1,000 miles from the closest ocean. They pay someone local to fake a website by rewriting pages (including ours) to draw hits on Google and sell ads. We cover Sausalito ourselves, from Ft. Baker and Hurricane Gulch to Gate 6 1/2 and Pohono, and we have over 1,000 pages of original content.
7. Traditional websites disguise paid advertising as news. Why are they so thrilled about the dresses at XYZZY Fashion? Because they're being paid to get excited. We always disclose any sponsor links to any page, so you can decide for yourself if a sponsor influenced our opinions.
8. Traditional websites scatter Sausalito information. We collect data from hundreds of sources to concentrate Sausalito information in one convenient place.
9. Traditional websites want to keep your page views, not connect you to resources. We have 400% more outbound links for Sausalito than any other site.
The only traditional things about OurSausalito.com are good writing, opinionated editors, and wide-open listening for your feedback.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to gather all the Sausalito information that a visitor or resident might ever need, and make it readily available in a well-organized, continually-updated and easy-to-use format
How We Earn Money
OurSausalito.com is an ad-supported site focused solely on Sausalito. We're just entering the phase of our roll-out where we're selling ads. To inquire about advertising click here.
In addition to our editorial team, we also have the tech wizards behind the Online Experience IndexTM . This technology and process are also available for licensing to other regional sites.
Separation of Church and State
We do not have any financial interests in any Sausalito restaurants, hotels, stores or attractions, nor do our families.
We do not publish ads disguised to look like news stories. We publish reference information and ads, and we'll make sure you can always tell the difference. Ads and banners (like that of charter sponsor Poggio Trattoria) will be clearly displayed as advertising. If any business listed has been a consulting client or is a sponsor or advertiser, we will disclose the relationship on the page of any editorial content (e.g. restaurant pages).
If any link on our site that is not an ad generates revenue for us, we will always refer to it as a sponsored link.
OurSausalito's Sister Sites
One section of OurSausalito.com became so large that we redesigned it as a specialized "sister site." This is OurGoldenGate.com, with information on visiting or commuting on the Golden Gate Bridge.
In early 2010 we added pages for Muir Woods and Alcatraz, which tour operators frequently "bundle" with Sausalito on vacation packages. These pages also drew a large audience, so we spun them off as OurAlcatraz.com (for visitors to Alcatraz), and OurMuirWoods.com (for visitors to Muir Woods).
Content Guidelines
We encourage open discussion in our comments sections, and in articles submitted by Contributing Editors. If you disagree with our opinion and post your ideas in a constructive way it makes our site better, because readers now have two perspectives from which to choose.
We will, however, immediately delete or edit obscene or offensive language, personal attacks or disparaging statements about individuals or groups, weblinks in comments (alias "link spam"), copyrighted material belonging to others, and anything that we feel holds the potential to offend our readers and violate their sense of appropriate content. If you see anything inappropriate anywhere on our site, please contact us via the address below.
We look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions! Email us at:
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Note: We launched in 2008 as ComeToSausalito.com, and changed our name to OurSausalito.com in February 2009 to better reflect our content for local residents.
Keep up the good work, and BTW, why not be an affiliate site with Amazon and others?
All the Best, Martha
Green Pacific - PR for the Planet
Posted by: Martha DiSario, 196 Spencer Avenue, Sausalito, CA 94965 | 07/25/2009 at 11:10 PM
Martha, we have considered doing Amazon affiliate links and may elect to do so down the road, in which case we would list it here. I've seen a handful of other places where prestigious online sites were affiliates who received commissions on books etc. they recommended, and it worked.
What concerns us is that some sites become so anxious for affiliate revenue that they "sell out" and recommend whatever will make them a buck. That betrays the trust of readers, and that trust is the most valuable commodity a site like OurSausalito.com can have.
So that's why we're very conservative on these issues, and all our business relationships will be listed openly so our readers always know what's going on.
Thanks, Martha, for your comment -- it is an interesting and complex issue.
Posted by: Editors | 07/26/2009 at 12:33 PM