What does the search domain in the network preferences do? I'm setting up my DNS to go through my employers DNS server and have entered the addresses they provided. They say it's a dynamic DNSSEC provider. I kind of understand this. But I noticed that under the search domains section to the right, there is an entry. What does the search domain for DNS do exactly? I would think my query, would go to the name-server I specified, and they would return the IP. How does this work exactly?
This has actually been answered in quite a bit of detail over on sister-site superuser.com, here.