diff --git a/api/catalog/api/controllers/search_controller.py b/api/catalog/api/controllers/search_controller.py
index e02170ffa..be4e3a8f7 100644
--- a/api/catalog/api/controllers/search_controller.py
+++ b/api/catalog/api/controllers/search_controller.py
@@ -410,7 +410,7 @@ def search(
     )
 
     result_count, page_count = _get_result_and_page_count(
-        search_response, results, page_size
+        search_response, results, page_size, page
     )
     return results or [], page_count, result_count
 
@@ -447,7 +447,7 @@ def related_media(uuid, index, request, filter_dead):
         s, start, end, page_size, response, request, filter_dead
     )
 
-    result_count, _ = _get_result_and_page_count(response, results, page_size)
+    result_count, _ = _get_result_and_page_count(response, results, page_size, page)
 
     return results or [], result_count
 
@@ -496,7 +496,7 @@ def get_sources(index):
 
 
 def _get_result_and_page_count(
-    response_obj: Response, results: list[Hit] | None, page_size: int
+    response_obj: Response, results: list[Hit] | None, page_size: int, page: int
 ) -> tuple[int, int]:
     """
     Elasticsearch does not allow deep pagination of ranked queries.
@@ -506,14 +506,22 @@ def _get_result_and_page_count(
     :param results: The list of filtered result Hits.
     :return: Result and page count.
     """
-    if results is None:
-        return 0, 1
+    if not results:
+        return 0, 0
 
     result_count = response_obj.hits.total.value
-    page_count = int(result_count / page_size)
-    if page_count % page_size != 0:
-        page_count += 1
-    if len(results) < page_size and page_count == 0:
-        result_count = len(results)
+    page_count = ceil(result_count / page_size)
+
+    if len(results) < page_size:
+        if page_count == 1:
+            result_count = len(results)
+
+        # If we have fewer results than the requested page size and are
+        # not on the first page that means that we've reached the end of
+        # the query and can set the page_count to the currently requested
+        # page. This means that the `page_count` can change during
+        # pagination for the same query, but it's the only way to
+        # communicate under the current v1 API that a query has been exhausted.
+        page_count = page
 
     return result_count, page_count
diff --git a/api/catalog/api/examples/audio_responses.py b/api/catalog/api/examples/audio_responses.py
index db116ca49..898ba2191 100644
--- a/api/catalog/api/examples/audio_responses.py
+++ b/api/catalog/api/examples/audio_responses.py
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@
 audio_search_200_example = {
     "application/json": {
         "result_count": 1,
-        "page_count": 0,
+        "page_count": 1,
         "page_size": 20,
         "page": 1,
         "results": [
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@
 audio_related_200_example = {
     "application/json": {
         "result_count": 10000,
-        "page_count": 0,
+        "page_count": 1,
         "results": [
             {
                 "title": "File:Mozart - Eine kleine Nachtmusik - 1. Allegro.ogg",
diff --git a/api/catalog/api/examples/image_responses.py b/api/catalog/api/examples/image_responses.py
index b65d87e2e..dcd3c5ee5 100644
--- a/api/catalog/api/examples/image_responses.py
+++ b/api/catalog/api/examples/image_responses.py
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@
 image_search_200_example = {
     "application/json": {
         "result_count": 1,
-        "page_count": 0,
+        "page_count": 1,
         "page_size": 20,
         "page": 1,
         "results": [base_image | {"fields_matched": ["title"]}],
@@ -109,7 +109,7 @@
 image_related_200_example = {
     "application/json": {
         "result_count": 10000,
-        "page_count": 0,
+        "page_count": 1,
         "results": [
             {
                 "title": "exam tactics",
diff --git a/api/test/unit/controllers/test_search_controller.py b/api/test/unit/controllers/test_search_controller.py
index 1121575cb..997bdcdf1 100644
--- a/api/test/unit/controllers/test_search_controller.py
+++ b/api/test/unit/controllers/test_search_controller.py
@@ -13,36 +13,49 @@
 
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize(
-    "total_hits, real_result_count, page_size, expected",
+    "total_hits, real_result_count, page_size, page, expected",
     [
         # No results
-        (0, 0, 10, (0, 0)),
+        (0, 0, 10, 1, (0, 0)),
         # Setting page size to 0 raises an exception
+        # Not possible in the actual API
         pytest.param(
-            0, 0, 0, (0, 0), marks=pytest.mark.raises(exception=ZeroDivisionError)
+            5, 5, 0, 1, (0, 0), marks=pytest.mark.raises(exception=ZeroDivisionError)
         ),
         # Fewer results than page size leads to max of result total
-        (5, 5, 10, (5, 0)),
-        # Even if no real results exist, total result count and page count are returned
-        # (seems like an impossible case IRL)
-        (100, 0, 10, (100, 10)),
+        (5, 5, 10, 1, (5, 1)),
+        # If no real results exist, even if there are hits, fall back to 0, 0
+        # (This case represents where all the links for a result are dead, for example)
+        (100, 0, 10, 1, (0, 0)),
         # If there are real results and ES reports no hits, nothing is expected
         # (seems like an impossible case IRL)
-        (0, 100, 10, (0, 0)),
+        (0, 100, 10, 1, (0, 0)),
         # Evenly divisible number of pages
-        (25, 5, 5, (25, 5)),
+        (25, 5, 5, 1, (25, 5)),
+        # An edge case that previously did not behave as expected with evenly divisble numbers of pages
+        (20, 5, 5, 1, (20, 4)),
         # Unevenly divisible number of pages
-        (21, 5, 5, (21, 5)),
-        # My assumption would be that this yields (20, 4), but the code is such that
-        # when the "natural" page count can't be cleanly divisible by the page size,
-        # We increment it plus one. Why would that be the case? 20 results, with 5
-        # results per-page, would seem to result in 4 pages total not 5 🤷‍♀️
-        (20, 5, 5, (20, 5)),
+        (21, 5, 5, 1, (21, 5)),
         # Fewer hits than page size, but result list somehow differs, use that for count
-        (48, 20, 50, (20, 0)),
+        (48, 20, 50, 1, (20, 1)),
+        # Despite us applying a pagination limit, that is applied further up in the API, not at this low a level
+        (2000, 20, 20, 2, (2000, 100)),
+        # Page count is reduced to the current page number even though 2000 / 20 is much larger than 5
+        # because despite that we have result count < page size which indicates we've exhausted the query
+        (2000, 5, 20, 5, (2000, 5)),
+        # First page, we got all the results and there are no further possible pages with the current page count
+        (10, 10, 20, 1, (10, 1)),
+        # This is here to test a case that used to erroneously produce (10, 2) by adding 1
+        # to the page count when it wasn't necessary to do so.
+        (10, 10, 10, 1, (10, 1)),
+        # This is technically impossible because we truncate results to the page size before entering this method
+        # I think the handling of this case is a likely source for the bug in the previous case
+        (10, 10, 9, 1, (10, 2)),
     ],
 )
-def test_get_result_and_page_count(total_hits, real_result_count, page_size, expected):
+def test_get_result_and_page_count(
+    total_hits, real_result_count, page_size, page, expected
+):
     response_obj = mock.MagicMock()
     response_obj.hits.total.value = total_hits
     results = [mock.MagicMock() for _ in range(real_result_count)]
@@ -51,6 +64,7 @@ def test_get_result_and_page_count(total_hits, real_result_count, page_size, exp
         response_obj,
         results,
         page_size,
+        page,
     )
     assert actual == expected