The invention provides a method and system for searching images. The method comprises: a client receives a content to be searched which comprises a target image to be searched or the target image to be searched and relevant information thereof; the client obtains visual words of the target image and selects at least one target visual word dictionary corresponding to the content to be searched from more than one visual word dictionary according to preset rules and obtains the target visual word of the visual words according to the target visual word dictionary; and the target visual word is encoded and then transmitted to a server to obtain upshots matched with the searched content and/or relevant information of the upshots. The method provided by the invention can be used for improving the image search speed by reducing data uploaded by the client while shortening waiting time of users and improving the search accuracy of the search system.