1. A method for personalized search comprising the steps of: receiving a query from a user; identifying the user; retrieving a user history for the user comprising access patterns identifying linked information elements previously accessed by the user within an information repository; identifying a user profile comprising keywords relevant to the access patterns in the user history; determining a proximal neighborhood using the user history in the user profile, wherein the proximal neighborhood comprises only linked information elements previously unseen by the user that are within a threshold distance of the linked information elements in the user history; and applying the query to the unseen linked information elements in the proximal neighborhood and determining search results comprising the unseen linked information elements that match the query.