Real Life Examples of Stage 1 Authority Sites

This is episode 7 of 7 of the Authority Hacker New Year Starter Series. If you haven't been through the previous episodes, we suggest you go and check those out first.
What you will learn

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How 3 different stage 1 authority sites are making money
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How a site in the paintball niche ranks on page 1 with very few links
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How one site is crushing it despite being in an "obscure" niche
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How a site in the outdoors niche is ranking for around 281,000 keywords

Today we're going to look at 3 examples of real life stage 1 sites. These all vary in quality and the idea is just to give you an idea of what you can actually achieve with this model.
Paintball Pursuit


PaintballPursuit.com is in the paintball niche and is the smallest site on our list with only around 10 pages and a couple thousands estimated monthly visitors.

Despite it's size, the site is positioned in a very low competition niche and we believe it's making around $100-$300 per month as a result. That said, with a bit of work there's no reason this site couldn't make it into the 4 figure per month realm.

The content focuses heavily on individual product reviews and the cost of these products are relatively high, offering attractive affiliate commissions.

As for links, it only has 40 referring domains - a very weak link profile and one that could be replicated in no time. Despite that, the site ranks for some solid keywords including #3 for "paintball gun reviews" and #4 for "best paintball gun".

Lastly, the site lacks a persona and overall, it just doesn't feel very credible. The design is super basic and they haven't even bothered to implement a logo.

Lastly, the site lacks a persona and overall, it just doesn't feel very credible. The design is incredibly basic and they haven't even bothered to include a logo.
Best Crossbow Source


BestCrossbowSource.com is in the crossbow niche. It has around 350 published pieces of content and almost 200,000 monthly visitors. Overall, this site is a bit closer to the size of Authority Hacker.

Despite being in what some might call an "obscure" niche, we believe this site is making around 5 figures per month and shows no signs of slowing down.

The content itself is excellent and it's almost all affiliate content with a strong focus on buyer intent related keywords. They frequently use 'Best X' format for their articles, including pieces like "best crossbows" and "best lightweight crossbows".

Interestingly, this site doesn't seem to target any informational keywords, which is something we definitely don't advise but it seems to working for them nonetheless.

In terms of their link profile, with only 96 referring domains it's not all that strong and not the highest quality, either. This is especially surprising when you consider that they've been around for over 3 years.

Lastly, the design is pretty good. It's simple, clean and well designed. One thing we didn't like was the domain, which is less branded and too "exact match".
Outdoor Gear Lab


OutdoorGearLab.com is a site in the outdoors niche. It's by far the largest site on our list with tons of pages and around 600,000 monthly visitors.

The content is outstanding and on par with affiliate giant, the