The term gets thrown around a lot no doubt.

And from what I can tell, most folks tend to agree that an authority site is a website that has a lot of pages ranking on a certain topic.

Text adsense ads.

Cut and dry.

My journey as a publisher has led me to a different understanding.

My first "authority site" was the first site that I got non spammy comments on.

The first site in which I endeavored to place non obtrusive, aesthetically sensible adverts on.

The first site that I got a good percentage of return visitors on.

It was my first site that got a steadily growing feed subscription.

It was my first site that got a steadily growing Facebook page.

And it's doing $well