diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/10224-zypper_repository-metalink.yml b/changelogs/fragments/10224-zypper_repository-metalink.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..8dd1987a4e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/10224-zypper_repository-metalink.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+  - zypper_repository - use ``metalink`` attribute to identify repositories without ``<url/>`` element (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/issues/10224, https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/pull/10225).
diff --git a/plugins/modules/zypper_repository.py b/plugins/modules/zypper_repository.py
index 94f2c504fc..17de63bb6d 100644
--- a/plugins/modules/zypper_repository.py
+++ b/plugins/modules/zypper_repository.py
@@ -174,7 +174,10 @@ def _parse_repos(module):
             opts = {}
             for o in REPO_OPTS:
                 opts[o] = repo.getAttribute(o)
-            opts['url'] = repo.getElementsByTagName('url')[0].firstChild.data
+            try:
+                opts['url'] = repo.getElementsByTagName('url')[0].firstChild.data
+            except IndexError:
+                opts['url'] = repo.getAttribute('metalink')
             # A repo can be uniquely identified by an alias + url
             repos.append(opts)
         return repos