diff --git a/src/gbif_registrar/utilities.py b/src/gbif_registrar/utilities.py
index 8a5f972..478663b 100644
--- a/src/gbif_registrar/utilities.py
+++ b/src/gbif_registrar/utilities.py
@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@
 from json import loads
 import pandas as pd
 import requests
-from requests import get
 from gbif_registrar.config import PASTA_ENVIRONMENT, GBIF_API
 
 
@@ -134,7 +133,10 @@ def has_metadata(gbif_dataset_uuid):
     The presence of a dataset title indicates that the dataset has been
     crawled by GBIF and the metadata document has been created.
     """
-    resp = get(url=GBIF_API + "/" + gbif_dataset_uuid, timeout=60)
-    resp.raise_for_status()
+    resp = requests.get(url=GBIF_API + "/" + gbif_dataset_uuid, timeout=60)
+    if resp.status_code != 200:
+        print("HTTP request failed with status code: " + str(resp.status_code))
+        print(resp.reason)
+        return False
     details = loads(resp.text)
     return bool(details.get("title"))
diff --git a/tests/test_utilities.py b/tests/test_utilities.py
index 65d8e3c..ebc55dc 100644
--- a/tests/test_utilities.py
+++ b/tests/test_utilities.py
@@ -88,7 +88,38 @@ def test_read_local_dataset_metadata_failure(mocker):
     assert metadata is None
 
 
-def test_has_metadata_returns_expected_type():
-    """Test that the has_metadata function returns a boolean."""
+def test_has_metadata_success(mocker):
+    """Test that has_metadata returns True on success."""
+    # Create a JSON string simulating a successful response from the GBIF API
+    json_content = """{"title":"This is a title"}"""
+    mock_response = mocker.Mock()
+    mock_response.status_code = 200
+    mock_response.text = json_content
+    mocker.patch("requests.get", return_value=mock_response)
     res = has_metadata("cfb3f6d5-ed7d-4fff-9f1b-f032ed1de485")
     assert isinstance(res, bool)
+
+
+def test_has_metadata_failure(mocker):
+    """Test that has_metadata returns False on failure.
+
+    Failure may occur if the GBIF API returns a 404 status code or if the
+    JSON response doesn't contain a title."""
+
+    # Case 1: GBIF API returns a 404 status code
+    mock_response = mocker.Mock()
+    mock_response.status_code = 404
+    mock_response.reason = "Not Found"
+    mocker.patch("requests.get", return_value=mock_response)
+    res = has_metadata("cfb3f6d5-ed7d-4fff-9f1b-f032ed1de485")
+    assert res is False
+
+    # Case 2: GBIF API returns a 200 status code but the JSON response doesn't
+    # contain a title
+    json_content = """{"description":"This is a description"}"""
+    mock_response = mocker.Mock()
+    mock_response.status_code = 200
+    mock_response.text = json_content
+    mocker.patch("requests.get", return_value=mock_response)
+    res = has_metadata("cfb3f6d5-ed7d-4fff-9f1b-f032ed1de485")
+    assert res is False