Using a variable to replace an integer? (Except it isn't working!)

[Larz60+]

You are using this wrong.
Surrounding it with single quotes makes it a string.

The original looks like:

WOEID_LOOKUP_URL = ("http://locdrop.query.yahoo.com/v1/public/yql?"
                   "q=select%20woeid%20from%20locdrop.placefinder%20"
"where%20text='{0}'")

so in order to assign this to url, it needs to be:

url = WOEID_LOOKUP_URL.format('freegeoip')

Output:
"http://locdrop.query.yahoo.com/v1/public/yql?q=select%20woeid%20from%20locdrop.placefinder%20where%20text='freegeoip'"

Now you've got a valid url!

this url may have changed, see: https://developer.yahoo.com/geo/placefinder/