A system, computer-implemented method, and computer-readable storage medium for generating a block-based index, are provided. A block index is generated where the block index comprises a plurality of blocks and a block corresponds to a section of a graph column that stores a value. A block range vector is also generated for the index where the block range vector includes range information for the block that corresponds to the section of the graph and where the block-based index facilitates traversal of the graph column that searches for the value by constraining the traversal to the section of the graph.