diff --git a/rewrite-maven/src/main/java/org/openrewrite/maven/internal/MavenPomDownloader.java b/rewrite-maven/src/main/java/org/openrewrite/maven/internal/MavenPomDownloader.java
index fa928415dec..b4145f96c8e 100644
--- a/rewrite-maven/src/main/java/org/openrewrite/maven/internal/MavenPomDownloader.java
+++ b/rewrite-maven/src/main/java/org/openrewrite/maven/internal/MavenPomDownloader.java
@@ -412,7 +412,7 @@ public MavenMetadata downloadMetadata(GroupArtifactVersion gav, @Nullable Resolv
                 break;
             }
             String href = responseBody.substring(start, end).trim();
-            if (href.endsWith("/")) {
+            if (!href.startsWith("../") && href.endsWith("/")) {
                 //Only look for hrefs that have directories (the directory names are the versions)
                 versions.add(hrefToVersion(href, uri));
             }
diff --git a/rewrite-maven/src/test/java/org/openrewrite/maven/internal/MavenPomDownloaderTest.java b/rewrite-maven/src/test/java/org/openrewrite/maven/internal/MavenPomDownloaderTest.java
index 2ee8b6ffbc2..f7f3d678cea 100755
--- a/rewrite-maven/src/test/java/org/openrewrite/maven/internal/MavenPomDownloaderTest.java
+++ b/rewrite-maven/src/test/java/org/openrewrite/maven/internal/MavenPomDownloaderTest.java
@@ -22,7 +22,6 @@
 import org.intellij.lang.annotations.Language;
 import org.jspecify.annotations.Nullable;
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.*;
-import org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions;
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.io.TempDir;
 import org.junit.jupiter.params.ParameterizedTest;
 import org.junit.jupiter.params.provider.CsvSource;
@@ -616,6 +615,18 @@ void deriveMetaDataFromFileRepository(@TempDir Path repoPath) throws Exception {
             assertThat(metaData.getVersioning().getVersions()).hasSize(3).containsAll(List.of("1.0.0", "1.1.0", "2.0.0"));
         }
 
+        @Test
+        void deriveMetaDataFromHtmlBasedRepository() throws Exception {
+            MavenRepository repository = MavenRepository.builder()
+              .id("html-based")
+              .uri("https://central.sonatype.com/repository/maven-snapshots")
+              .knownToExist(true)
+              .deriveMetadataIfMissing(true)
+              .build();
+            assertThrows(MavenDownloadingException.class, () ->
+              new MavenPomDownloader(emptyMap(), ctx).downloadMetadata(new GroupArtifact("does.definitely.not", "exist"), null, List.of(repository)));
+        }
+
         @SuppressWarnings("ConstantConditions")
         @Test
         void mergeMetadata() throws Exception {