Seven new domain classifications have been approved by the internet's international governing body.

The new internet groupings for domain names have been set up to ease demand on the overcrowded dot-com field and end the gold rush that has led to some web addresses being valued at millions of pounds.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is responsible for governing names on the web, announced the new suffixes because the crowded dot-com field currently has some 30 million addresses.

The new classification .biz for businesses, .name for individuals, .museum for museums, .pro for professionals .aero for aviation, .coop for co-operatives and info for general sites will be added to the current .net, .org and .com sectors.

The newly-approved classifications should be working by the end of June, next year.

Lesley Cowley, operations director for Nominet, which is responsible for the domain group registry, said: "These new divisions will provide an alternative to dot-com because lots of people who want a dot-com address can't get one.

"At Nominet, we receive about 100,000 new .co.uk names every month and it is becoming more difficult to register them."

He said it was important for expansion and competition to be controlled, to avoid confusion and instability. If too many new domain fields were introduced it could cause problems for website owners and surfers.

"The internet user should instantly know where to go and the needs of the user that each domain is serving should be taken into account."

ICANN board members voted for the seven new classifications from a list of 200.

The organisation has been cautious in adding new domain names but once the process is established it hopes to add new groupings more quickly.

ICANN asked interested organisations to apply to operate and manage new domain fields in September and companies paid about £35,000 to become record keepers for the new names.

As registry operators, they can charge a nominal amount of money for every name registered, which could add up to millions of pounds for the most popular suffixes.

Personalisation of websites is also planned for the future, including .me.uk which will be reserved for personal and family use.