Domainers are attracted to patterns the way that moths are attracted to light at night. The lure of pattern domaining is clear - it looks like you get all the benefits of owning domains, without needing to be an expert at valuing the domains. This expertise takes a lot of time and hard work to develop, so, unfortunately new domainers tend to be the most attracted to pattern domaining, and in the end, the ones who are hurt the worst.
Pattern domaining tends to follow?.. oh, let?s just say a pattern. You?ll find an increasing number of forum posts that set out recent sales for domains that meet the pattern, the number of domains left of that pattern that aren?t registered, talk about increasing minimum reseller pricing, and so on. The posts will be full of spin and hype, and made with the goal of drumming up interest in the pattern. Sometimes even entire blogs are created to discuss a particular pattern.
Pattern domaining has a serious flaw - and that is the lack of enduser sales or traffic. One characteristic of pattern domaining is that most sales are to other domainers rather than to end users. Prices can?t continue to rise constantly unless endusers are buying domains. There needs to be a significant number of enduser sales - not just the odd one that gets pumped up on the forums. And the prices that endusers are willing to pay have to be high enough to justify the reseller prices.