Re: Ban Google from gTLDs
Well, not quite right. There actually does not need to be a period in there. http://search is valid. However, it does not necessarily point to search. (i.e, the search gTLD under the root domain.)
According to the DNS RFC (see page 7), any character string which does not end in a period should be treated as a relative name, which should be resolved against a predetermined origin or list of origins -- but the exact list and methodology is not prescribed.
In practice, clients generally test single-word (i.e, no periods) strings against the local domain (e.g, search may be resolved as search.thiscomputersdomain.com.), and multiple-word strings against the root domain, with a possible fallback to the local domain if no root match is found (e.g, search.com is resolved as search.com. and failing that search.com.thiscomputersdomain.com.)