That's a good question. I'm not sure what is the answer to your question. I'll do some investigation and get back to you if I discover an anything. You should email the people at Godaddy as they probably could answer your Godaddy question..

IMHO, Deet, I think .Coms will always hold there strength no matter how many tlds come out (true for most of the developed countries). At least it will always be the preferred tld of choice of those countries which have had been actively using the internet like the USA since the .com boom. For countries who are now just beginning to become internet savvy or will become internet savvy in years to come, their country tld may be stronger...

I don't think anyone has figured out what value really means in HostGator land..

Some use PPC earnings as a value gauge, some use Overture figures, some look at what the GoDaddy site is making now, some use branding potential, but all these are arbitrary since things can change quite rapidly on the Internet..

.COM has over 40,000,000 names registered, and very diluted with both good names and many very bad names that only a mother could love..

So it is difficult to judge value just by the fact that it is a .COM, but more so the quality of the words on the left of the dot..

I would estimate that 90% of all .COM names will depreciate in value as more TLD solutions come into play because they are not prime words..

Whereas with new TLDs, prime words are plentiful, very affordable, and makes extra sense to certain communities, to certain content types..

Overall, the value of .COM namespace will plummet as developers become increasing aware of, and explore new choices..

Developers don't depend on type-ins for their success, this together with the fact that only an estimated 10-15% of all Internet traffic is type-in driven, and that we are seeing more sell-outs and liquidation of .COM namespace today, suggests irrevocable that .COM value, as a whole, is on the downslide...

.com is not going to change whatever other option come. anyway a simple user always hits 'Ctrl+Enter' in most cases which naturally brings up the .com after the name...

If there were no other TLD's, then the .coms will keep going up and up. The buyers of the new TLD's could have contributed to the demand (in the demand/supply equation) of the .com had they not registered the new TLD's..

I think the new TLD's should have two effect:.

1. will make a ceiling, at some point the .com will satuated, stop going up..

2. the .com will not go up quickly, it will go up slower because of new TLD's...

True, every namespace will hit a PODR (Point-of-diminishing-return) sometime.COM value was at it's perceptual value peak in 1998-2000, crashed round about 2001-2003, started climbing up agressively again in 2004-2005, peak in 2006, then crash again in 2007.

I'm talking about the 90% of .COM names with average to bad generic words, typos, made-up words. 10% of the good generic .COM names will still hold on to incredible value in the coming years..

And because of their high prices, developers and SMBs will increasingly see alternative namespace as being more and more desirable as the Internet continues to get more crowded and mainstream..

.BIZ, for example, is a sleeping giant in the B2B arena. Reasonable to acquire, great (no compromise) keywords, and a great differentiating badge in the sea of .COMs. It just needs acceptance by the business community, and acceptance is not too difficult to achieve in the ever changing Internet culture where 'new' is embraced as good. Heritage is both good and bad...

I think over time .com's will become more valuable...

I think it could go either way. It may affect the value of .com, as most of the valuable .com names are already registered, this will definitely prompt people for registration of other TLD's. Incase of other TLD's there will be quite a few good names available as compared to .com..

On the other hand it may also increase the value as there will be only a few .coms available and the ones which are already registered may get sold for a good amount...

I don't see the value of .com going down ever. With expanding economies there is increased demand on HostGator names no matter if they are .coms or tlds. I can't see the value of loan.com or cars.com going down. What I do see is that more people will become aware of other extensions other than just .com, .net., .org., .gov., .edu, and to a lesser extent, .info and .us..

As there is an increasing pinch in the .com market companies will be forced to do one of two things. First, they will either continue paying high dollar for .com names. Or second, they will start marketing non .com extensions. Right now, businesses seem to be leaning towards the first option; however with time, more businesses will continue looking toward option two. I would wager a bet the extensions .net and .us continue to raise in price, even at a higher rate than .coms...