Question

How do you account for the following fact?

Soft iron keepers help to prevent the magnets from losing their magnetic properties.

Answer 1

In magnets, external fields like earth’s magnetic field can randomize the domains. Perhaps stray fields caused by flowing currents in nearby electric circuits can also disturb i the alignment of domains lying inside a magnet. Given enough time, such magnets may find their domains randomly oriented and hence their net magnetisation may get lost. A keeper for magnets is just a strong permanent magnet that keeps all the domains pointing the same way and realign those that may have gone astray and hence magnet, can retain its magnetism for a long time.