A search method uses pseudo-anchor text associated with search objects to improve search performance. The pseudo-anchor text may be extracted in combination with an identifier of the search objects (such as a pseudo-URL) from a digital corpus such as a collection of documents. Pseudo-anchor texts for each object are preferably extracted from candidate anchor blocks using a machine learning based approach. The pseudo-anchor texts are made available for searching and used to help ranking the objects in a search result to improve search performance. Method may be used in vertical search of objects such as published articles, products and images that lack explicit URL and anchor text information.