Does authority sites really make money?

They do. Nobody can tell you about the time it takes to make one. All i'd say, build a site on a niche or topic that excites you, something that you like, won't get bored of and would love to develop over a period of time. Otherwise you'll end up making a yet another hopeless site that big G will slaughter in no time.

Just be active on the website you own. Being passive don't make sense and money too.

My advice is to NOT build an authority site because if that is your only purpose then you'll end up building something you are NOT passionate about.

If you're just building to be a top keyword and get clicks and adsense income, then you won't have the stamina and effort to really make it a business.

You are better off doing something you love and if it happens to make a bit of money, then so be it! At least you'll enjoy yourself.

Running an "authority" site isn't a long-term, viable business...one Google panda or penguin update and you're dead!

But if you run a site that you love and care about and have a real sense of community, Google won't matter because you won't be so concerned about being number one.

You can just be YOU! And have something to show the world that you're proud of and most of all...HAVE FUN!

Yes, you have to build an authority site to make good money. That is the whole essence of IM.

In case you are just getting started pick something easier to do. I have never even thought about owning an authority site. There are many many ways to start making money online ... This is definitely not the easiest way

I think Amazon does.

Generally, I think it's much more often the trust-based relationship between the authority site webmaster/owner and the subscribers/visitors that actually produces the income, rather than the site itself.

I think most internet marketers who are genuinely making a living will tell you, as I do, that it doesn't matter much, because "getting page one rankings" has so very little to do with the speed of the income's arrival, anyway. Personally, I'd advise you not to put too much of your time and effort into trying to attract "organic SERP's" traffic, for two main reasons: first, it's very precarious and makes your business Google-dependent, and any business that's Google-dependent is no more than one algorithm-change away from a potential accident (or even a potential disaster), as so many Warriors have been finding out over the last year or two, some of them to their very great cost; secondly, for me, search engine traffic has been uniformly the worst-converting traffic out of everything I've ever tried in 8 entirely different niches over the whole of the last 4 years - search engine visitors to all my websites typically stay the least time, view the fewest pages, opt in the least often and actually buy anything by far the least often. I admit I do get tons of search engine traffic to all my main sites (because high rankings for multiple keywords happen to be a minor side-benefit of the main targeted traffic-generation method I use to build my business) but I'd certainly hate to have to make a living just from that traffic.

Yes and no. Being an authority site doesn't mean it will make money. Being an authority in a niche that is "monetizable" (made-up word??) is key to making money. Another key is providing info that people actually use and trust.

Page one rankings can happen almost overnight if you are targeting low competition stuff (my preference).

When it come to spending your money, my only suggestion is to ask yourself if the offer you are about to spend money on makes sense. If someone is offering you a $39 (or even $539) website complete with content and an earnings claim of "thousands per month!", ask him why he would sell a website that makes "thousands per month" for just $39 (or even $539).

Use common sense when buying websites.

Yes, of course they do.. to get on page 1 google, it depends on your keywords competition.. it could take days, weeks, or even months..