The short answer is “yes” and “no”.  I know, confusing right?

Search engine penalties can expire after a certain time period.

However, a search engine penalty expiring depends upon many factors.

The following factors can determine whether or not search engine penalties expire:

• Whether corrective action has been taken to remedy penalty
• Whether the website is deleted or domain name expires
• If the website continues to garner additional penalties
• If no corrective action is taken or performed to the website

And this leads us to discussing one of my current customers and their search engine penalty saga.