diff --git a/mm/mm_init.c b/mm/mm_init.c
index 61d983d23f55..df34797691bd 100644
--- a/mm/mm_init.c
+++ b/mm/mm_init.c
@@ -1896,7 +1896,11 @@ static void __init free_area_init(void)
 	for_each_node(nid) {
 		pg_data_t *pgdat;
 
-		if (!node_online(nid))
+		/*
+		 * If an architecture has not allocated node data for
+		 * this node, presume the node is memoryless or offline.
+		 */
+		if (!NODE_DATA(nid))
 			alloc_offline_node_data(nid);
 
 		pgdat = NODE_DATA(nid);