<b>Q: How long do I need to keep the old domain and redirects alive?</b>

<b>Q: How long do I need to keep the old domain and redirects alive?</b>

Short answer: at least a year. Ideally, keep the domain forever and the redirects for years.

Long answer: People assume once traffic moves over, the old domain is dead weight. But those 301s are still doing two jobs: passing any remaining link signals from backlinks pointing at old URLs, and catching the occasional old link someone clicks. Google's guidance is to keep redirects in place for at least a year so it fully settles the move. Backlinks to your old URLs can live on other sites for a decade — kill the redirects and that referred authority and traffic just dies.

The domain registration is cheap insurance; the redirect config costs nothing to leave running.

Next step: set a calendar reminder for 12 months out to RE-EVALUATE, not to delete. Renew the old domain on auto-pay. If you ever do retire redirects, do it gradually and watch your referral traffic.