On July 1, 1995, EIA became the first agency within the U.S. Department of Energy to venture onto the Internet. In an era before Google, Facebook, and Internet Explorer, the Internet had about 40 million users and 23,500 websites. The seven users who visited EIA.gov on its first day of operation had access to a few dozen web pages and 200 files. Although the initial version of the website looked rather primitive, the website quickly established itself as the agency's primary communications channel.