The number of websites using a .eu domain name has pushed the web suffix into the top 10 after just one year of availability.

More than 2.5 million websites have registered addresses using the European suffix, making it the seventh most popular type of web address.

Addresses with the .eu ending are available to buy by any private citizen, company or organisation based in one of the 27 countries that make up the European Union.

Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, said that unlike other domain addresses which were bought up to protect a brand, almost four out of five .eu domain names were used to display a site.

"After just one year, .eu has become a well-established part of European cyberspace," Reding said.

"This is a positive sign of the attractiveness of electronic commerce within the EU."

According to Eurid, the non-profit body that regulates the European domain name, .eu is now Europe's third-largest name behind .de in Germany and Great Britain's .uk.

Almost one in three of the .eu domains have been registered by private individuals, according to a study by Eurid.

German users bagged 795,000 of the 2.5 million domains, with the UK in second with 439,000 .eu addresses.