The Green Day Authority is a fan site created in 2001 that is dedicated to being a central source for Green Day news and information. Created by fans for fans.
The Green Day Authority is not an official affiliate or representative of Warner Brothers Records, Reprise Records, Green Day or their management.
For information on the GDA team, visit the team page. You can contact us here.
Since the Green Day Authority was founded in 2001, over 20 million people have stopped by the site. That's approximately 19 million with at least a passing interest in Green Day, and 1 million who clicked the wrong link from Google. Although our popularity exploded with the 2004 release of Green Day's "American Idiot, there was a solid 4 to 5 year background of building the content that led to our success.
Back in the summer of 2000, Courtney Smith, was a bored college student. She had been running a Geocities site for her favorite actor, which eventually evolved into a page for some of her favorite bands. This was the foundation of GDA. While that original site didn't last, she started noticing that some of her favorite Green Day sites were going down. It was at that point she decided to make her own, which she simply named "Courtney's Green Day Page". After the release of Warning, and the song "Minority," she named the site "The Green Day Minority". As the page grew more popular, she decided it was time to focus on it exclusively. On July 4th of 2001, she bought the domain name "greendayauthority.com", hence changing The Green Day Minority to The Green Day Authority. GDA was officially launched on July 12, 2001.
For the next two years, Courtney worked with a co-webmaster, Matt. Both began adding new sections and researching details to flesh out the site, piling in content that was lacking in other websites. The goal was to build a central place for everything related to Green Day. In 2004 Andres Martinez joined the site, fresh out of high school, as a news editor. He then moved up to site administrator and took over the day to day of the site in 2006. He is now co-owner of GDA. In 2004, we were sent a copy of American Idiot a week before it's September 21st release date. We posted it in its entirety for people to listen to, staying smart enough to not make anything available for download and thereby (luckily) staying out of trouble. GDA's popularity exploded almost overnight. Prior to the "AI" release, we averaged around 4,000 visitors a day. Over the next 3 years, as our reputation and popularity grew, we would average almost 50,000 visitors per day.
We've continued to work as a team, with our community, to bring as much information as we can to more fans around the world.
In December 2009 Courtney and Andres welcomed Jeanette Newton as a new co-owner and business manager for GDA. She began working with the team to make GDA a more financially sound business which will allow GDA to offer more for our visitors. In April 2012 we selected Jimmy Douglas as our first ever Managing Editor, who's primary focus has been on improving the news we publish on GDA.
We still strive to be the central place for everything related to this band, who remain a continual source of inspiration and enjoyment. We've stuck around because of our appreciation of the community which Green Day fans worldwide have helped us create, and we look forward to remaining a part of that community for as long as we can.
2 Servers: Ubiquity Hosting
Site Version: 9.5
Daily Visitors: 10,000 +
Established July 2001
Over 45 Million Hits since debut
Coding Software: Sublime Text (Windows), Coda (Mac)
FTP Software: WinSCP (Windows), Transmit (Mac)
Image Software: Photoshop CC 2014
Forum Software: Invision Power Board
July 2001 - June 2002
June 2002 - August 2004
August 2004 - September 2010
October 2010 - September 2012