What Makes MHProNews the Runaway #1 in Manufactured Housing News? 3 Months of Top 35 Reports Reveal What Attracts Manufactured Home Professionals, Public Officials, Researchers, Attorneys, Others
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The picture at ‘MHI endorsed’ MHInsider is even bleaker for them compared to MHI’s website traffic (visitors) and page views data.
For November 2024, per SimilarWeb, is the following.
Total visits for Nov 2024 Worldwide = 3,488. That was actually an increase, per SimilarWeb of “12.67% from last month.” They only get 1.60 page views per visit. Note in the screen capture that the average visitor only stays on MHInsider: Visit Duration = 00:00:39. Less than 40 seconds per visit. Even more embarrassing than MHI’s stats, isn’t it?
MHProNews publishes routinely longer articles that have numerous links to supporting facts and information. It may take twenty, thirty or more minutes to read some articles. Here are the screen shots from 12.18.2024 on SimilarWeb to document the statements above.
On 12.18.2024 per SimilarWeb is the following screen capture. The call out box, arrows and the “Proud member of MHI” parody logos were added by MHProNews. The image is a collage from the SimilarWeb website on that date circa 2:30 PM ET. Let’s compare. MHProNews had 288,073 page views in November 2024 vs. 3,488 for MHInsider.
Here is the math on how many times more traffic was generated by the content on MHProNews than on MHInsider for the same month. 1,532,753/5580.8 = 274.647541571.
So, MHI trails MHProNews.
MHInsider trails MHProNews by about half of what MHI gets. Here’s the proof/evidence.
MHProNews Note: depending on your browser or device, many images in this report can be clicked to expand. For example, in some browsers/devices you click the image and select ‘open in a new window.’ After clicking that selection, you click the image in the open window to expand the image to a larger size. To return to this page, use your back key, escape or follow the prompts.
Both MHI and MHInsider were contacted prior to this report to give them an opportunity to correct any errors from SimilarWeb, because it is always possible that they have erred. As of the time this report was drafted, there has been no response from either organization. But if they respond after publishing, MHProNews would be delighted to share their response.
So, what explains the difference? Content.
But perhaps there is more to it than content.
For years, MHProNews has done fact-checks and fisked various MHI, MHInsider and some of their other allied publications.
It is certainly possible that MHI’s traffic has dropped over the years. But if MHI’s claimed traffic years ago was accurate (it is possible that it was not), it seems that MHI’s traffic has dropped significantly. And we mean even more so than what the recent drop reported by SimilarWeb reflects. If so, that may well be because of MHProNews’ various fact checks, exposes, and analyses. Industry pros who are regular readers of MHProNews would know that MHI is, how should we phrase it? Full of it. They are engaged in routine paltering, posturing, Orwellian word-games and memory hole ops, and sometimes worse. But in fairness to MHI, when they apparently erase numbers of their own past presidents, CEOs, VPs and at least one of their award-winning members, among other things, that is fits the notion of “Orwellian memory hole” well. FYI: for those who want a definition and reference, per left-leaning Google’s AI powered Gemini.
An Orwellian memory hole is a figurative or physical place where information is deliberately erased or forgotten, often to create the impression that something never happened. The term originated from George Orwell’s 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, where a memory hole is a chute that destroys documents and other materials that contradict the Party’s beliefs…”
What is that content that so totally dominates MHI, and MHInsider, and their other allied bloggers and trade pubs? See for yourself.
For November, October, and September of 2024 are the following top 35 articles for each month. Note that some of these articles are political issues viewed through the lens of MHVille. Some are purely manufactured housing. Many are critiques of MHI and/or MHI insider corporations and/or their leaders.
From #1 each for each month shown through #35 (in some cases content that is deemed proprietary is omitted) are as follows. At MHProNews readers (a.k.a.: visitors) decide what is the #1 most-read article, or the #2 or the number 2,000th (yes, we have thousands of pages visited each month; one reason we dominate is logically our sheer size and the scope of MHProNews’ content). Note too that some articles are big in the month they were published, but some stay ‘read hot’ weeks, months or even years after they were first published. Good information can have a timeless quality to it.
Above was #2 in November 2024. Published on November 6, 2024. Obviously, a political but timely topic. Note that in a very unique result, apparently because the referral path was different than the one above, this article actually made it into the top 35 twice. That may be a first.
#7 above was published on June 26, 2023. MHProNews note: given that Blue Orca was the top story for November, it is not surprising that among the other highly read reports were ones linked from that article. “Smoking Gun” above was linked from the Blue Orca report. Additional note: our developing relationship of news-tips-views articles with the Patch, per our internal metrics, is also driving more traffic. Blue Orca was a topic shared on the Patch and linked back to MHProNews. Media relationships can matter.
#9 above was published on November 17, 2024. Note: The article above was published in the last half of the month and still made the top 35 for the month. It was also a topic that was featured in our broader series of topics covered on the Patch.
#11 above was published on October 18, 2023. Stop and think about that for a few moments. The article above is an example of manufactured housing industry consolidation. The, MHI, and other MHI linked publications and bloggers often either celebrate consolidation or ignore it. Try to find one that looks at consolidation as a possible case of market manipulation, other than MHARR, MHProNews, MHLivingNews, or more recently on the Patch?
#15 above was published on October 20, 2020. MHProNews note: James Carville has been a hotter interview, particularly on left-leaning mainstream media reports, before and after the 2024 election. Because we covered that topic, when Carville comes up, it is not a surprise that his famous (or infamous) remark about “Drag a hundred–dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find” may come up. No one defends the manufactured home industry from problematic voices like MHProNews/MHLivingNews. Certainly not MHI, their state association affiliates, nor their allied trade media. The evidence for that includes the articles in this list, like the one above.
#18 above was published on November 23, 2024, near the end of the month. Obviously, a better understanding of HUD’s next Secretary is an important topic for MHVille’s future.
#22 above was published on November 21, 2024. Note the article above is a legal-political topic that is applied to MHVille. It revisits an article on that same topic previously published but does so from an updated angle. Obviously, when readers have access to thousands of articles on MHProNews, for this to make the top 35 in the busy-busy month of November 2024 is an accomplishment. It means that readers valued that content.
#25 above was published on November 6, 2024. Obviously, an election/political topic, and MHProNews readers gobbled it up. Per Webalizer there were 79104 Total Referrers during November of 2024. A large share of those referrers are from webpages within MHProNews, but some are from outside sources too.
#33 above was published on October 29, 2024. While MHI was pushing for Democratic backed items that could harm manufactured housing interests, the article above was mirrored, albeit tweaked, on the Patch. It made the top 35 cut.
#34 above was published on December 23, 2020. MHProNews doesn’t have the time to do every possible topic, but obviously some recent event sparked interest in the above. Enough said for the curious who want to know.
#35 above was published on September 12, 2024. Weeks after it was first published, the article above remained in the top 35. Enduring interest in another MHProNews exclusive.
#36 above was published on November 6, 2024. See remarks on #2 above as it applies.
Part II
In October, in the run-up to the 2024 election there were even more pageviews than November on MHProNews. 288,073 visits and 1,720,089 million pageviews apparently dwarfed MHI’s website plus MHI linked publications and blogs combined. While MHI and MHInsider, for example, each have under 2 page views per visit, per Similar Web, MHProNews had just a smidge less than 6 pageviews per visitor on average (here is the math: 1,720,089/288,073 = 5.97101776). Why doesn’t MHInsider, or MHI give their hard data or do a similar report to the ones like this that are periodically published on MHProNews? One word and some examples below may illustrate. Embarrassment.
MHInsider apparently responded to such fact checks as the one above by turning off the eyes viewed tool on their site. But by using SimilarWeb, and giving MHInsider, MHI, or any others an opportunity to share their data publicly on their sites or on ours, the proverbial heat is on them. Are there readership totals on a given article still so amazingly low? MHProNews may have more pageviews in the first minutes an article is visibly posted than what MHInsider gets after days. The article below was about Tim Williams, president and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway owned and Clayton Homes sister brand, 21st Mortgage Corporation. Here is the math, per their own views counter: 531/20 = 26.55 pageviews per day. Embarrassing.
With that backdrop, here are the top 35 for October 2024. Like the November ranking, it reflects what readers like you have decided are the most popular or most read articles out of the thousands that can be accessed during any given month on MHProNews. The same disclosures and disclaimers provided above apply here. As but one datapoint comparing MHInsider’s embarrassment to MHProNews’ robust engagement: 21289 was the hit count on the top article shown below. But the rest of that story is this: that article wasn’t posted until October 27, 2024. Apparently, readers like you found that comparison between MHARR’s President and CEO Mark Weiss, J.D., responses to substantially the same questions answered by MHI CEO Lesli Gooch, Ph.D. to be of keen interest.
#3 was posted on October 8, 2024. Note that 1, 2, and 3 in October are topics that others in MHVille didn’t publish an article about, or in many cases, didn’t even mention. Inquiring minds want to know. Because MHI and those aligned with them routinely ignore subjects that ought to be important topics, of course MHProNews gets more eyes looking.
#4 was posted on October 28, 2024. Like the #1 article, it was posted late in the month, but nevertheless, the subject was of such keen interest to readers that it roared into fourth place overall. Note too that because MHProNews has sourced insights from across the left-right divide for over a decade (the above is a left-leaning source), there is ‘something for everyone’ and readers are exposed to a wider variety of insights and ideas.
#8 was posted on October 20, 2024. The article above is the type of article that has yet to be featured on MHI, nor is it known to be on any MHVille connected site that has apparent ties to MHI. While that research was broad, and not about manufactured housing, the insights apply to MHVille and the American (and many other nation’s too) landscape more broadly. It takes time to pull together such research and unpack it in a way that it sheds light on why manufactured housing is underperforming. But it places a rigorous scholarly framework to work for the benefit of those who want to understand why manufactured housing is underperforming during an affordable housing crisis.
#9 was posted on October 21, 2024, roughly two weeks before the 2024 Election Day. Readers accessed a total of 35,671 Total Referral paths during the months. Many of those are from inside the MHProNews website, which is why there are just under 6 page views per visitor. Thousands of articles can be accessed during a month on MHProNews, so being in the top 35 is a big deal.
#11 was posted on June 26, 2023. As in November, because the Blue Orca stories were ‘read hot’ in October, it is no surprise that readers clicked through to articles linked from those reports to articles like the above.
#15 was posted on October 30, 2024. NAR provided data, plus Manufactured Housing Industry official data, combined for the kind of article that even though it was posted at the end of the month still made the top 35 out of thousands of items accessed by readers.
#16 was posted on October 30, 2024. Not to brag, but this writer’s multiple academic award-winning sense of history gives us certain advantages over those who lack that same sense. Less than a week before the 2024 election a flashback report plus early voting trends provided a surprisingly insightful product for readers. Where some multi-billion-dollar media outlets failed in an accurate projection for the possible election outcome, MHProNews citing credible sources across the left-right divide yielded a useful report that broke more than half way up the top 35.
#17 was posted on October 23, 2024. Reasons why the Biden-Harris (D) economy yielded one of the worst U.S. housing affordability problems in the last 40 years. How MHI could support that type of outcome is explored, among other facts-evidence-analysis that was lacking in the rest of MHI-linked sources.
#20 was posted on February 1, 2024. Roughly 9 months after it was first posted the article linked above still made the top 35. ICYMI, see why, because the insights are timeless.
#24 was posted on January 2, 2024. Because MHI linked sources have downplayed or ignored the above, is it any surprise that MHProNews remains the industry’s leading source for information and analysis on that critical topic?
#26 was posted on December 23, 2020. Some may make the mistake of thinking that if they ignore a report and don’t respond to MHProNews inquiries that it will blow over. While it may be true, that is not always true. When someone or some organization doesn’t respond to MHProNews, they are asking for some future event to bring the subject back to the forefront.
#31 was posted on September 25, 2024. Give the source its due. The Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) may not be perfect, but who is? They routinely do a good job on data, and when it was suggested by this writer for MHProNews that they update their dataset on this report, they looked at the reasons why and said, sure, we can and should do that and then they did. Too bad MHI doesn’t work like that, isn’t it?
#33 was posted on October 15, 2024. Thanks for making the 15th anniversary celebration one of the top 35 for October! Several interesting quotes and behind the scenes insights into the evolution of this industry-leading and widely praised publication.
#35 was posted on August 21, 2023. Over a year later, it still hit the top 35. ICYMI, see why that report has timeless insights others haven’t reported, but MHProNews did.
#4 was posted on June 26, 2023. Again, as with #2 above, when the Blue Orca story (see item below) broke on MHProNews, it pushed Sun/Gary Shiffman related items higher.
#7 was posted on September 9, 2024. This topic was suggested by a high ranking official with a producer. The article obviously scored highly with MHVille readers.
#12 was posted on September 19, 2024. The factual and evidence-based topics others ignore are found on MHProNews and are reasons why we are the runaway #1 in MHVille trade media.
#19 was posted on January 2, 2024. Because the topic was widely downpla7ed and/or ignored by those in the MHI orbit, it was and remains a highly engaged subject on MHProNews.
#20 was posted on September 21, 2024. Facts and evidence ignored by others, covered by MHProNews. One of the most read among thousands accessed during the month.
#22 was posted on August 15, 2021. Tim Connor, CSP, author and popular speaker has kept audience in the factory-built housing industry engaged for over 20 years and his Words of Wisdom are popular thought-provokers.
Let’s wrap on a partial recap with some facts from the preface of today’s installment of MHProNews.
According to SimilarWeb (see graphic below) MHI earned only 1.83 page views per visit in November 2024. MHI only had 7,556, reportedly down (-22.88%) from October.
The math on that reveals: 1.83 x 7,556 = 13827.48. So, MHI generated a total of 13827.48 page views total last month.
By comparison, MHProNews generated 1,532,753 page views from a total of 288,073 visits.
That means that in November 2024 MHProNews has 110.848325219 times more page views than MHI. That ought to be an embarrassment for them, but it is a testament to that important word: content.
We provide facts, evidence and analysis (FEA) that MHI and their linked bloggers and publishers can’t, won’t or doesn’t.
MHProNews Note: depending on your browser or device, many images in this report can be clicked to expand. For example, in some browsers/devices you click the image and select ‘open in a new window.’ After clicking that selection, you click the image in the open window to expand the image to a larger size. To return to this page, use your back key, escape or follow the prompts.
When one article can produce more readers than all of the content on MHI for a month combined, that should speak volumes. GOOD Content is king. We bring the facts that others can’t, won’t or don’t. C-suite level readers who are in the MHI orbit, nonprofits in or out of MHVille, public officials and others find the content meaty or they wouldn’t keep coming back. Thanks to all who make this true and possible.
Our son has grown quite a bit since this 12.2019 photo. All on Capitol Hill were welcoming and interested in our manufactured housing industry related concerns. But Congressman Al Green’s office was tremendous in their hospitality. Our son’s hand is on a package that included the Constitution of the United States, bottled water, and other goodies.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
