1. One or more non-transitory storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause: storing bonds that reflect relationships between searchable items; wherein the bonds are not stored as part of the searchable items; wherein the bonds do not reflect storage location relationships between the searchable items; receiving a search request to perform a search; determining that a particular searchable item is to be the starting point of the search; responding to said search request by performing the search relative to the particular searchable item that is to be used as a starting point for said search, wherein performing the search includes at least one of: (a) determining whether one or more attributes of a particular bond satisfy one or more criteria and ceasing to search down a traversal path that extends from the particular bond if the one or more attributes of the particular bond do not satisfy the one or more criteria; (b) searching only those searchable items that are within a particular degree of separation of the particular searchable item; (c) determining the order in which searchable items are compared against search criteria of said search request based on the degree of separation of the searchable items from the particular searchable item; or (d) ranking the searchable items that satisfy said search based, at least in part, on the degree of separation between the searchable items and the particular searchable item.