diff --git a/parser/ossinsight.go b/parser/ossinsight.go
index b516723..96b41c2 100644
--- a/parser/ossinsight.go
+++ b/parser/ossinsight.go
@@ -41,6 +41,12 @@ type OssInsightResponse struct {
 			Forks           string `json:"forks"`
 		} `json:"rows"`
 	} `json:"data"`
+	DataQuality struct {
+		Status           string `json:"status"`
+		Metric           string `json:"metric"`
+		UnavailableSince string `json:"unavailable_since"`
+		Reason           string `json:"reason"`
+	} `json:"data_quality"`
 }
 
 func GetTrendingReposFromOssInsight(maxRepos int, period, language string) ([]Repository, error) {
@@ -87,6 +93,19 @@ func GetTrendingReposFromOssInsight(maxRepos int, period, language string) ([]Re
 		return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to decode OssInsight response: %v", err)
 	}
 
+	// OssInsight answers with HTTP 200 and no rows when the ranking it is asked
+	// for cannot be computed, so the payload has to be checked explicitly.
+	if q := apiRes.DataQuality; q.Status != "" && q.Status != "ok" {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("OssInsight metric %q is %s since %s: %s", q.Metric, q.Status, q.UnavailableSince, q.Reason)
+	}
+	// A narrow language filter can legitimately match nothing, the same way the
+	// GitHub trending page can come back empty, so only an unfiltered query that
+	// yields nothing is treated as a failure. This keeps the empty-payload guard
+	// useful even if the data_quality block ever disappears from the response.
+	if len(apiRes.Data.Rows) == 0 && (language == "" || language == "All") {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("OssInsight returned no trending repositories for period %q", period)
+	}
+
 	var allRepos []Repository
 	for _, row := range apiRes.Data.Rows {
 		if !isEnglishText(row.Description) {