diff --git a/app/search_engines/bento_search/catalog_engine.rb b/app/search_engines/bento_search/catalog_engine.rb
index f096cb64..466d631e 100644
--- a/app/search_engines/bento_search/catalog_engine.rb
+++ b/app/search_engines/bento_search/catalog_engine.rb
@@ -65,12 +65,13 @@ def search_implementation(args)
 
       # TODO: Get a hidden reference to this value into the atom payload so it is referencable from the summary variable
       parsed_summary = Oga.parse_html(entry['summary'])
-      link_href = parsed_summary.at_xpath('//a/@href')
-      if link_href
-        # NOTE: this was changed mainly to avoid NPE and avoid parsing the same html 3 times. I can't vouch for the
-        # logic (specifically, it feels fragile to assume a correspondence between href and associated text,
-        # but perhaps that assumption is valid in practice?)
-        online_resource[link_href.text] = parsed_summary.at_xpath('//a/text()')&.text&.strip.presence || '[no link text]'
+      link = parsed_summary.at_xpath('//a')
+      if link
+        # If a link exists, we are not opinionated about what it must be. e.g., if href.nil? || href=='', we just pass
+        # it along. The exception is that we generate placeholder link text if none is present, to ensure that any
+        # links generated downstream will be visible/clickable.
+        href = link.attribute('href').to_s
+        online_resource[href] = link.text.strip.presence || '[no link text]'
       end
 
       holdings_string = mms_id.downcase.start_with?("hathi") ? '' : determine_holdings_status(holdings, mms_id, online_resource)