Thought I would ask 5,300 people what is the first thing that pops into their head when they hear the word SEO. Here was their responses 
Would you like to see more of these types of polls? I wrote a script to generate them based on the API so its pretty easy for me to do.
@lostinlimaohio (Lilo Verbrechen) says:@shoemoney that the site I’m working with (didn’t design though) should be labeled to damn ugly to pop up in the first 10 pages
@kmullett (hunteeer) says:@shoemoney Search Eng Optimization, act of preparing a site to be technically indexable without incumberances, keyword/phrase saturation etc
@tremorx (Michael Johns) says:@shoemoney some college kid getting paid too much to play around on MySpace and expensing a copy of "serach engine optimization for dummies"
@chrisjacobson (Chris Jacobson) says:@shoemoney SEO? I think of ShoeMoney trying to game Google and acting like he’s the sh*t!
@marciajones (Marcia Jones) says:@shoemoney Hours of mind numbing work tweaking html etc. on webpages. Also hours of keyword research for webpages.
@peterwallhead (Peter Wallhead) says:@shoemoney re. SEO: ppl charging way too much to give you free information.
@david_n_wilson (David_N_Wilson) says:@shoemoney Hmmm… SPAM Most of the contacts I have in a week that involve the letters SEO are spam.
@khawe (Kieran Hawe) says:@shoemoney maybe I shouldn’t have said SEO = headaches. I will go with the more politically correct "opportunity"
@corprebel (Rick Wilson) says:@shoemoney To me, SEO = Making sites SE friendly. That’s MY simplistic view of it anyway. heh
@colderICE (John ) says:@shoemoney Rocketscience and the proving of gravitational earth pull on moving objects?!? SEO is this black box that u can spend ur life on
@spooons (christian) says:@shoemoney a set of techniques/practices in coding websites so they are standards based, compliant, and indexable. NOT a person/deceptive
@homebiss (homebiss) says:@shoemoney Time wasting. SEO is kinda silly. SE algos change from time to time. We could never understand them.
@mwsmedia (Matthew Selznick) says:@shoemoney Search Engine Optimization. Both white hat and black. There is no gray, in my mind.
@tonychester (Tony Chester) says:@shoemoney I think of highly relevant content written to appeal to Googlers, in a very keyword rich sort of way.
@DominickEvans (DominickEvans) says:@shoemoney google….getting my site placed on google and/or yahoo through SEO
@marenhogan (marenhogan) says:@shoemoney that someone misspelled CEO. HA! I slay me. I need to get back to work.
December 18, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Duh every animal lover knows that SEO really stands for Sexy Ethiopian Otters
September 15, 2008 at 7:33 pm
At my company I hear that about ten billion times a day. I usually think Google.
September 11, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Every person nearly has different ideas for different situations, things or thinks.
September 11, 2008 at 12:18 am
necessary evil that gives me headaches.
September 10, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Doesn’t it stand for Student Employment Office ?
September 10, 2008 at 1:14 pm
When I hear SEO, it gives me a headache because it can be stressful if you dont know how to apply it to your blog or website. I am reading other blogs and trying to gather all the information I can to use SEO on my own. But it basically means to me, google pagerank, keyword rich, optimizing your site.
September 10, 2008 at 4:52 am
When I hear SEO, I think: keyword research (using good keywords for site and not saturating it with bad/unnecessary keywords), good internal and external linking, clean coding (validted by W3C), good content, and achieving a good page(s) rank.Search Engine Optimization… So much goes into it…Phew!
September 10, 2008 at 12:38 am
I think of bounce rate, backlinks, content and rotating my anchor text. How geeky is that?
September 9, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Some of those answers are hilarious…interesting to see what people think of seo
September 9, 2008 at 4:45 pm
snake oil salesmen
September 9, 2008 at 2:39 pm
we are there and followers
September 9, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Opps forgot the question..seo.. a new word to make people crazy.
September 9, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I think you are one smart dude…I have just started on my internet journey a few months…ago….www.carolstanley1.com..My book For Kids 59.99 and Over…of course I would love to sell a gazillion..but more important I really feel passionately about staying healthy, fit, happy and enjoying the journey along the way…I know you are successfulll and I mostly admire this.because you figured a way…carol stanley
September 9, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Get ready for the Google Slap
September 9, 2008 at 1:13 pm
how did i miss this on twitter?
September 9, 2008 at 12:27 pm
lol, seo is simple. it’s all backlinks
September 9, 2008 at 8:12 am
I am learning seo by the mother of all se’s, google. Within my webmasters section in my google account, I get to see errors and and other details as to what google likes or dislikes pertaining to my blog posts. Its important to look at these details to learn, master, and refine your seo skills constantly in order to find your site with good organic placement.
September 9, 2008 at 6:00 am
Huh, so Jeremy what do you what does SEO really means ?
September 9, 2008 at 5:02 am
When I think of SEO I’d like to take a min to think how the search engines changed the face of the internet (and our lives) , twitter? not a big fan , pretty useless web 2.0 website for me ..
September 9, 2008 at 4:34 am
Search Engine Optimization.
September 9, 2008 at 3:21 am
SEO = I want to get rich quick, NOT! Make a good product that people want first. Bring something unique to the market. The world doesn’t really need yet another blog.
September 9, 2008 at 2:59 am
SEO = Senior Executive Officer…lol.
September 9, 2008 at 12:05 am
SEO = Success
September 8, 2008 at 11:06 pm
ahahahaha this is priceless! I love some of these responses!! I would love to see more of these in the future!
September 8, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Worthless buzzword.
September 8, 2008 at 10:13 pm
When I think about SEO I think about “Sites Enemy Order”. This is because it is now adays almost impossible to rank high.
September 8, 2008 at 9:20 pm
haha….search engine orgy
September 8, 2008 at 9:14 pm
All the little things that other people DON’T do that let you sneak by to the top.
September 8, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Ew! For me, SEO and confusion are synonymous.
September 8, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I always thought it was an acronym
September 8, 2008 at 7:36 pm
When I hear SEO I think money.
money money money.
September 8, 2008 at 7:33 pm
SEO? Must be a term from those master computer type guys at Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net came up with.
September 8, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Those are some pretty hilarious responses! I especially like the Search Engine Orgy response. Never thought of it that way.
There are alot of people out there, though, that will charge a company an arm and a leg to optimize a persons site with the basics just because those companies have no clue. It’s definitely an exploited service.
I own and operate a web design and development business and I offer free search engine optimization for all of my clients. There is no reason not too.
If a website is design correctly it should already have search enginge optimization included in it.
September 8, 2008 at 7:00 pm
If you are a website designer with out the knowledge of search engine optimization, then you need to wake up. This is the only sure way through which you can attract thousands of visitors to your website.
September 8, 2008 at 7:00 pm
It involves the art and process of making your website to rank high in major search engines when a specific word is searched by a potential visitor through a particular search engine like Google, Hotbot, AltaVista, MSN Search.
September 9, 2008 at 8:43 am
Good points
SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines.
September 8, 2008 at 6:58 pm
In my opinion, SEO means spamming search engines.
September 8, 2008 at 6:56 pm
very simple question. It is Search Engine Optimization.
September 8, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Hahah, good answers…
September 8, 2008 at 6:42 pm
A Dummies book
September 8, 2008 at 6:33 pm
What a comedy, piss myself laughing – “misspelled CEO”, “viagra”, “a lot of drinking”…
September 8, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I think about many annoying people trying to sell you worthless links.
September 9, 2008 at 3:24 am
Exactly!
September 8, 2008 at 5:28 pm
SEO = Strong Evil Odor
Gotta admit Shoe; the sphinn stuff had me rolling on the floor, and also made me spit up my most recent sip of juice. Ain’t it funny how your spins can be removed one day, and then the owner spins you the next day? I call that weenie-ism. It’s very transparent and very much a pathetic weenie who just can’t stand someone not liking him.
I think of odor more and more and why I don’t do strictly seo.
September 8, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Pretty funny
September 8, 2008 at 5:24 pm
“post replies” i’m an idiot lol – I wanted to see the replies that were interesting, which, in fact, are shown here
September 8, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Silly Executioner Mistakes..?
September 8, 2008 at 5:12 pm
wow.. or even Single Edge Octive…
ill use an O word this time…
September 8, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Great poll idea, and a nice way to post the results!
Regards, Matt
September 8, 2008 at 5:09 pm
SEO has a really negative reputation.
September 8, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Pubcon baby!
Oh, and making money while I sleep without PPC.
September 8, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Some of these are hilarious.
September 8, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I used to think its Search Exec Officer, .. well…
September 8, 2008 at 4:50 pm
hey we actually got shoe talking back he made his own top commentators list!
September 8, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Haha, I’m surprised he didn’t put himself as an exception. It should usually be the case that the blogger is the #1 commentator.
September 8, 2008 at 4:49 pm
hilarious.. funny stuff shoe. man i could only imagine what I would ask 5300 followers…
September 8, 2008 at 4:48 pm
@shoemoney SEO is what the masters of the intraweb over on Digital Point study.
September 8, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Taking mom and pop to the top.
September 8, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I didn’t think you’d post my comment… nice! lol
September 8, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Cool… I found a few people to follow in that list.
September 8, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I’m sure a lot of these are supposed to be tongue in cheek, but a few responses seem pretty ignorant.
A lot of negativity…
September 8, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Just folks trying to use the topic of SEO to garner controversy (and therefore, attention!)
September 8, 2008 at 4:30 pm
bounce rate.
September 9, 2008 at 3:37 am
Hehe, some pretty funny responses there.
September 8, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Funny. I don’t think you could have raised any other question that would have gotten more responses.
September 9, 2008 at 4:37 am
I met people who do not understand the meaning SEO.
September 8, 2008 at 4:26 pm
When I think seo, I think search engine optimization, then I think about how easy it is to implement basic SEO and how many people don’t…
September 9, 2008 at 7:45 am
Think SEO – Think Rankings – Think Shoe :p