diff --git a/cl/corpus_importer/tasks.py b/cl/corpus_importer/tasks.py
index 613be7be56..6d471b82f2 100644
--- a/cl/corpus_importer/tasks.py
+++ b/cl/corpus_importer/tasks.py
@@ -2231,7 +2231,11 @@ def update_rd_metadata(
         item=rd,
     )
     if response.is_success:
-        rd.page_count = response.text
+        rd.page_count = int(response.text)
+
+    assert isinstance(
+        rd.page_count, (int, type(None))
+    ), "page_count must be an int or None."
 
     # Save and extract, skipping OCR.
     rd.save()