We all know someone or seen someone who’s gotten kicked out of Google SERPs. It seems like a significant proportion of these people (or at least just the vocal ones) feel this exclusion is as personal as it was in seventh grade—Susan G. didn’t like you, so she wouldn’t let you hang out with their group, and it must be the same thing with Google, right?

Tell that to the Google employee who recently realized his site had been delisted. Jason Morrison of Google Australia had his personal site removed from the index. But don’t worry, he’s not spamming or hiding keywords on a background—he just exceeded the bandwidth quota he’d set for his blog, and the server errors made Google think the site had been shut down.

In the spirit of Googly openness, Jason shares not only what was wrong, but how he discovered it through Webmaster Tools, and how he fixed it.

So the next time someone complains to you about Google being out to get them, maybe you can tell them about Jason’s case. Naturally, as TechDirt notes, this case doesn’t mean that Google never targets specific sites, but it is at least one more piece of evidence that most Google penalties are handled algorithmically.

Or maybe you should just confirm their suspicions. With their paranoia, they probably need that abuse.

What do you think?