1. A method for searching in a large-scale database of images for images that are visually similar to query images, comprising using a processor for a) computing visual features for the database images; b) constructing an Image Anchor Graph that contains a plurality of anchors corresponding to a subset of images in the database, according to the computed visual features; c) computing visual features for the query images; and d) retrieving database images similar to one or more query images using a ranking algorithm that compares the computed visual features of both the query images and the database images through the Image Anchor Graph.