diff --git a/plugins/Web/plugin.py b/plugins/Web/plugin.py
index 6b88800be..b42dcc39e 100644
--- a/plugins/Web/plugin.py
+++ b/plugins/Web/plugin.py
@@ -210,8 +210,15 @@ class Web(callbacks.PluginRegexp):
             irc.error("This url is not on the whitelist.")
             return
         size = conf.supybot.protocols.http.peekSize()
-        s = utils.web.getUrl(url, size=size) \
-                        .decode('utf8')
+        fd = utils.web.getUrlFd(url)
+        content_type = fd.getheader('Content-type', 'text/html') \
+                .split(';', 1)[0]
+        if content_type not in ('text/html', 'application/xhtml+xml',
+                'application/xhtml'):
+            irc.error(_('This is not an HTML page (content type is %r)') %
+                    content_type)
+            return
+        s = fd.read(size).decode('utf8')
         m = self._doctypeRe.search(s)
         if m:
             s = utils.str.normalizeWhitespace(m.group(0))
@@ -264,7 +271,15 @@ class Web(callbacks.PluginRegexp):
             irc.error("This url is not on the whitelist.")
             return
         size = conf.supybot.protocols.http.peekSize()
-        text = utils.web.getUrl(url, size=size)
+        fd = utils.web.getUrlFd(url)
+        content_type = fd.getheader('Content-type', 'text/html') \
+                .split(';', 1)[0]
+        if content_type not in ('text/html', 'application/xhtml+xml',
+                'application/xhtml'):
+            irc.error(_('This is not an HTML page (content type is %r)') %
+                    content_type)
+            return
+        text = fd.read(size)
         try:
             text = text.decode(utils.web.getEncoding(text) or 'utf8',
                     'replace')
diff --git a/plugins/Web/test.py b/plugins/Web/test.py
index d60ba9d5f..63f94208a 100644
--- a/plugins/Web/test.py
+++ b/plugins/Web/test.py
@@ -40,6 +40,8 @@ class WebTestCase(ChannelPluginTestCase):
         def testDoctype(self):
             self.assertError('doctype ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux')
             self.assertNotError('doctype http://www.slashdot.org/')
+            self.assertRegexp('doctype http://www.google.com/favicon.ico',
+                    'Error.*not an HTML page')
             m = self.getMsg('doctype http://moobot.sf.net/')
             self.failUnless(m.args[1].endswith('>'))
 
@@ -51,6 +53,8 @@ class WebTestCase(ChannelPluginTestCase):
         def testTitle(self):
             self.assertRegexp('title http://www.slashdot.org/',
                               'News for nerds, stuff that matters')
+            self.assertRegexp('doctype http://www.google.com/favicon.ico',
+                    'Error.*not an HTML page')
             # Checks for @title not-working correctly
             self.assertResponse('title '
                 'http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/F/foo.html',