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 rank the objects in a search result to improve search performance. The method may be used in vertical search of objects such as published articles, products and images that lack explicit URLs and anchor text information.