How the White House website has changed over the past 18 years in one awesome gif

AP

The White House is a familiar national icon, standing unchanged as Presidential administrations come and go.

Its website, on the other hand, is constantly evolving, and there's now a gif that shows just how much it's changed since 1997.

Whitehouse.gov was created in 1994, when Bill Clinton was president. At that time, Clinton's young staffers were "horrified" to find typewriters were still in use instead of computers and the ultra-modern fax machine, the New York Times reported.

It took a year to get the site up and running. Here's the gif, provided to Business Insider by Udemy, that shows how it's evolved since 1997, just three years after it first hit the internet.

Udemy/Wayback Machine

The first version of the site only provided a few functions, including an index of federal information, a virtual tour of the White House, details about the first and second families, and a map of Washington, DC.

A press release from the White House attempted to explain the incredible potential of the website to a nation largely unfamiliar with the Web, explaining the internet as "a vast electronic computer network used by people in more than 150 countries."

Here's what the website looked like six years after its launch, in March of 2000. Note the American flag gifs.

WayBack Machine

Here's what the site looked like on President George W. Bush's last day in office.

WayBack Machine

Today's WhiteHouse.gov is updated constantly.

Whitehouse.gov

Visitors can still read about the President's position on key issues and learn about the First and Second families, just like they could in 1994.

Now, however, they can also create and sign petitions, check the President's public schedule and watch live White House briefings - and the waving-flag gifs are probably gone forever.

As we inch closer to the 2016 election, it's safe to say even more changes are in store for WhiteHouse.gov.