Fix 404s & 5xx Errors

Google Search Console is reporting 143,624 URLs that currently throw a 404 and another 3,271 hitting a 5xx server error. Most of the problem URLs are old .htm files that no longer exist. I run the site on WordPress, have full access to the .htaccess file, and Yoast SEO is already active. I need a clean, scalable solution that: • Maps every valid legacy URL to its closest live equivalent (or category) through permanent 301 redirects. • Forces any truly dead address to return a hard 404, never a soft one. • Eliminates the 5xx responses by identifying the underlying server-side cause and correcting it (configuration, plugin conflict, or code). • Leaves Yoast’s existing canonical and sitemap settings intact. Please propose your plan for generating the redirect rules (.htaccess or alternative), how you will batch-test them before deployment, and the method you will use to verify that Google stops surfacing these crawl errors.

Project ID: 40412524