How long to keep 301 Redirects?

[JesterMagic]

I found this old post (2006) about the subject but does anyone have any updates for it? [webmasterworld.com ]

I have a domain that is up for renewal and has been redirecting to the new site for a bout 4 months now. Some of the links pointing to the site has change but the majority has not (even after a few emails).

If I want the rank to pass from these links to my new site do I have to continue with the redirects?

Thanks

[sangi]

You should definitely renew your old domain and continue with the redirects, 4 months is nothing [webmasterworld.com] especially when the majority of links hasn't changed.

[tangor]

I generally keep redirects in force forever ... or at least five years. Even then, no search engine worth its salt ever forgets a url it has indexed. Of course, if you want the older url (redirect) to disappear, then run six months as 410 then let the site die. Then again, if you want to prevent anyone else using that domain name you'll have to keep it (which is recommended) ... and if that's the case, then keep the redirects in place and don't worry about it.

[JesterMagic]

Thanks for the input. I will continue to keep the redirects active (at least for the next 2 years).

[Robert Charlton]

IMO, two years really isn't long enough. If it's a site you care about, I would agree about forever.

[JS_Harris]

I also agree with forever, I've shut down the original domain of a site I owned 3 years after a complete move to a new domain and the new domain shed a lot of traffic right after I shut the original domain down. I did have 301's on a page to page basis, from old url to new url for each page. I also had a few backlinks pointing to the original site that were carrying over to the new domain and losing them made a big difference apparently.

If you must shut down an original domain then don't just wait for it to expire, disable it and remove it from the hosting account a month or two before the domain itself expires. Worst case scenario is that your new site rankings start to fall but you've still got control of the old domain and can restore the redirects.