diff --git a/youtube_dl/extractor/motherless.py b/youtube_dl/extractor/motherless.py
index b3bfcac9e..30e686a4e 100644
--- a/youtube_dl/extractor/motherless.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/extractor/motherless.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 
 from .common import InfoExtractor
 from ..utils import (
+    ExtractorError,
     str_to_int,
     unified_strdate,
 )
@@ -66,6 +67,11 @@ def _real_extract(self, url):
         video_id = self._match_id(url)
         webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
 
+        if any(p in webpage for p in (
+                '<title>404 - MOTHERLESS.COM<',
+                ">The page you're looking for cannot be found.<")):
+            raise ExtractorError('Video %s does not exist' % video_id, expected=True)
+
         title = self._html_search_regex(
             r'id="view-upload-title">\s+([^<]+)<', webpage, 'title')
         video_url = self._html_search_regex(