Yes. I bought access to his course as a last resort to understand SEO and it was full of big words with very little practicability. I decided to cancel the $500 yearly fee because there was no value to it. Although I cancelled, the system still charged me. I contacted the bank to let them know about the situation because Koray did not reply to any of my emails. I posted the problem on his Facebook group and someone contacted me in private to sort out the issue but the post was never approved. Somehow, by God’s grace, I was able to get back the $500 but it was a nightmare.
Then I found Casey.
Now I am excited because it's the first time I can see results on my own website.
After years of learning, now I started to understand what modern SEO
Yes, SEO IS a complex discipline and meaningful progress requires effort, study, and repeated practice. If you are too lazy and put in the effort then SEO is not for you.
Your "evidence" that some students struggled with the material, or couldn't understand certain words and were unable to use tools like Google or ChatGPT to look them up, says more about the students than about the teacher.
The responsibility for learning lies with the student, not solely with the teacher, especially when the material covers a genuinely rigorous and professional discipline. Saying that people should expect to "get" SEO and become a master of it after just ONE 10 or 20 hour course, is like saying that you can study Law or Medicine for 20 hours and expect to be proficient in the subject.
---
- Your "RECEIPT" (photo)
Is not even of Koray - why would you use this image on here?
If anyone bothers to read the "screenshot" they'd see the cheap AI image generation (probably the free version of ChatGPT) as you can see that it is full of spelling mistakes
"Our classical pose with Deer @thecharleseo during to Holistic SEO Meetup in Chiangmail it was a pleausure to see you, and looking forward to next one."
and that is not even Koray's Profile picture in the avatar
so effectively... you are lying to your readers.
---
- Your immorality claims
Koray meets thousands of people from all around the world. I have never seen him be anything but friendly, professional and polite on any and all podcasts or interviews he's been on. I'm sure he doesn't have time to do background checks on everyone he meets or associates with.
Statistically speaking, he's probably met a few serial killers.
Many people present two faces in public.
What I have observed is that Koray doesn't change his mind every 5 minutes about who HE is...you know what I mean Casey.
---
- Credibility
Koray is the most peer reviewed SEO on the planet. Show me someone who has publicly shared so much of his results or tactics for everyone to see or who knows more about the technical aspects of patents or their applications.
Have you (Casey) ever been invited to speak as a guest lecturer in front of actual computer scientists at prestigious universities? - what are your qualifications? Where are your results?
it took me a while to find it, because apparently you can't even rank for your own name "Casey Keith SEO". Go on...try and find you. I guess you've been trying.
---
- Sources
I think it's interesting how you choose to focus on a few messages of people on forums but ignore the hundreds of testimonials, case studies and publications that Koray has all over the Internet.
Even your sources have crappy grammar
"Does I understand Topical authority and was I scammed by my SEO agency ? : r/SEO"
---
- Bias
Let's ask a neutral party about your journalistic integrity and if there may be any bias in your article conclusions
"This article is strongly biased against Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR and his Semantic SEO course, displaying overtly negative language, selective emphasis on criticism, and little attempt at balance or neutrality."
"The text also cherry-picks derogatory quotes, highlights profanity, and frames industry “chatter” as consensus, all of which are persuasive strategies common in subjective, agenda-driven writing rather than neutral reporting."
"In summary, the article is biased, relying on negative anecdotes, emotive rhetoric, and ignoring positive or neutral perspectives, which undermines its objectivity and credibility as balanced reporting."
So if you are trying to "help" people decide why don't you give people ALL the facts. At least make an effort, your writing is like your SEO...lazy.
"Holistic SEO" is not a registered trademark in the US, and is a descriptive term, therefore, can not be "hijacked"; it simply means improving every possible component that has a positive influence on organic traffic and makes search engines more likely to trust the site. Personally, I watched hours of Koray's videos, and after finding definitions for the terms he was using, I realized he was talking about things that were common sense, not secret knowledge. I also happen to know more than one person who paid for Koray's courses and/or services and the quality was not as expected. While some of his tips were true and valuable, Casey was able to teach me not just buzzwords but also how SEO actually works, among a few other business things that other coaches charged me thousands of bucks for, and she (Casey) never wanted any money from me. While I am not going to talk down on Koray, I am going to say that Casey knows much more real and practical SEO than pretty much any other person I met or followed who claimed to be an "SEO expert".
Thanks. A lot of what we do as an agency is business development and coaching… not just SEO and marketing. A lot of real world marketing, print, billboards, busses, radio ads, event planning, etc… so I had considered using ‘holistic’. I figure good people and good businesses can benefit from my other skill sets.
Have you (Casey) ever been invited to speak as a guest lecturer in front of actual computer scientists at prestigious universities?
Yes and turned them down... beside I did enough public speaking in my career. I retired in 2009 and not trying to work anymore. Just help other learn how easy ranking websites that don't get hit by updates... entities my friend... embeddings... the shivers and tingles I get when I see people have the "ah hah" moments. Honesty, facts, and salience... not much harder than that.
ohhh the holistic thing... haha yeah I had been a partnership in a "holist services" in a different industry and threw that out one day for fun. Thought it sounded cool and is a good description... then I saw someone else was using it and never engaged it.
Koray and I used ot chat and share cat videos. He's always been polite. Then one day I asked hime about something asked me about... I thought it was maybe a native language issue... he blocked my because I scoured through my college books, and research on some of the terms he uses and they aren't real.... he's another circus act like most the YouTubers.
He and other's from YT are unknown the EVERYONE in the real marketing world... not one mention for any of the awards that are out there:
- People Found it challenging... doesn't use real vocabulary much of the time when discussing semantics... just gibberish much of the time.
the photo is from his wall, I gave to AI to add the styling, and yeah it screwed it up.
- Your immorality claims :they've been friends since black hat community that kicked them both
- Credibility.. many are just his VA's and peer reviewd by people that don't know better... no fault of their own
- Sources... I literally had OpenAI do Deep Reasearch for an honest review and it kicked out this... even I was surprised.
- Bias... that's what AI can do.
I had considered adding messages from DMs who were students of his etc.. but I didn't think I needed to... AI summed up what I have been told. I tried to ask him questions in ZimmWriter group one day when he posted something filled with nonsense... he deleted his post and left the group.
I didn't cherry pick, Deep Research did.
I'm not trying to be found or market myself.
Stop by one of my Google Meets sometime, I'd love to engage and have a real conversation. Totally welcome it.
Yes. I bought access to his course as a last resort to understand SEO and it was full of big words with very little practicability. I decided to cancel the $500 yearly fee because there was no value to it. Although I cancelled, the system still charged me. I contacted the bank to let them know about the situation because Koray did not reply to any of my emails. I posted the problem on his Facebook group and someone contacted me in private to sort out the issue but the post was never approved. Somehow, by God’s grace, I was able to get back the $500 but it was a nightmare.
Then I found Casey.
Now I am excited because it's the first time I can see results on my own website.
After years of learning, now I started to understand what modern SEO
is about.
Thank you for those kind words, my friend it’s been a pleasure getting to know and work with you
Ah OK...
let's look at your "evidence"
this is a quote from the first line of your article (in case you decide to rewrite it later)
"Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR bills himself as a “semantic SEO” guru and founder of Holistic SEO & Digital"
Koray doesn't "bill" himself as the founder, he IS the founder of Holistic SEO.
"Please learn how to construct a sentence Casey" - Google's Quality Rater Guidelines Team
A brand name which you tried to hijack, by the way (unsuccessfully, of course).
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/therealcaseykeith_casey-keith-holistic-seo-mentor-founder-activity-7131371556475174912-3ypQ
----
- People Found it challenging
Yes, SEO IS a complex discipline and meaningful progress requires effort, study, and repeated practice. If you are too lazy and put in the effort then SEO is not for you.
Your "evidence" that some students struggled with the material, or couldn't understand certain words and were unable to use tools like Google or ChatGPT to look them up, says more about the students than about the teacher.
The responsibility for learning lies with the student, not solely with the teacher, especially when the material covers a genuinely rigorous and professional discipline. Saying that people should expect to "get" SEO and become a master of it after just ONE 10 or 20 hour course, is like saying that you can study Law or Medicine for 20 hours and expect to be proficient in the subject.
---
- Your "RECEIPT" (photo)
Is not even of Koray - why would you use this image on here?
If anyone bothers to read the "screenshot" they'd see the cheap AI image generation (probably the free version of ChatGPT) as you can see that it is full of spelling mistakes
"Our classical pose with Deer @thecharleseo during to Holistic SEO Meetup in Chiangmail it was a pleausure to see you, and looking forward to next one."
and that is not even Koray's Profile picture in the avatar
so effectively... you are lying to your readers.
---
- Your immorality claims
Koray meets thousands of people from all around the world. I have never seen him be anything but friendly, professional and polite on any and all podcasts or interviews he's been on. I'm sure he doesn't have time to do background checks on everyone he meets or associates with.
Statistically speaking, he's probably met a few serial killers.
Many people present two faces in public.
What I have observed is that Koray doesn't change his mind every 5 minutes about who HE is...you know what I mean Casey.
---
- Credibility
Koray is the most peer reviewed SEO on the planet. Show me someone who has publicly shared so much of his results or tactics for everyone to see or who knows more about the technical aspects of patents or their applications.
Have you (Casey) ever been invited to speak as a guest lecturer in front of actual computer scientists at prestigious universities? - what are your qualifications? Where are your results?
Oh...here they are...
https://imgur.com/a/seo-specialist-fCE5B6a
it took me a while to find it, because apparently you can't even rank for your own name "Casey Keith SEO". Go on...try and find you. I guess you've been trying.
---
- Sources
I think it's interesting how you choose to focus on a few messages of people on forums but ignore the hundreds of testimonials, case studies and publications that Koray has all over the Internet.
Even your sources have crappy grammar
"Does I understand Topical authority and was I scammed by my SEO agency ? : r/SEO"
---
- Bias
Let's ask a neutral party about your journalistic integrity and if there may be any bias in your article conclusions
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-would-you-characterise-thi-4aYT3xzlRMyRyrLE2AuNIw
Here are a few of my favourites
"This article is strongly biased against Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR and his Semantic SEO course, displaying overtly negative language, selective emphasis on criticism, and little attempt at balance or neutrality."
"The text also cherry-picks derogatory quotes, highlights profanity, and frames industry “chatter” as consensus, all of which are persuasive strategies common in subjective, agenda-driven writing rather than neutral reporting."
"In summary, the article is biased, relying on negative anecdotes, emotive rhetoric, and ignoring positive or neutral perspectives, which undermines its objectivity and credibility as balanced reporting."
So if you are trying to "help" people decide why don't you give people ALL the facts. At least make an effort, your writing is like your SEO...lazy.
"Holistic SEO" is not a registered trademark in the US, and is a descriptive term, therefore, can not be "hijacked"; it simply means improving every possible component that has a positive influence on organic traffic and makes search engines more likely to trust the site. Personally, I watched hours of Koray's videos, and after finding definitions for the terms he was using, I realized he was talking about things that were common sense, not secret knowledge. I also happen to know more than one person who paid for Koray's courses and/or services and the quality was not as expected. While some of his tips were true and valuable, Casey was able to teach me not just buzzwords but also how SEO actually works, among a few other business things that other coaches charged me thousands of bucks for, and she (Casey) never wanted any money from me. While I am not going to talk down on Koray, I am going to say that Casey knows much more real and practical SEO than pretty much any other person I met or followed who claimed to be an "SEO expert".
Thanks. A lot of what we do as an agency is business development and coaching… not just SEO and marketing. A lot of real world marketing, print, billboards, busses, radio ads, event planning, etc… so I had considered using ‘holistic’. I figure good people and good businesses can benefit from my other skill sets.
Have you (Casey) ever been invited to speak as a guest lecturer in front of actual computer scientists at prestigious universities?
Yes and turned them down... beside I did enough public speaking in my career. I retired in 2009 and not trying to work anymore. Just help other learn how easy ranking websites that don't get hit by updates... entities my friend... embeddings... the shivers and tingles I get when I see people have the "ah hah" moments. Honesty, facts, and salience... not much harder than that.
ohhh the holistic thing... haha yeah I had been a partnership in a "holist services" in a different industry and threw that out one day for fun. Thought it sounded cool and is a good description... then I saw someone else was using it and never engaged it.
Koray and I used ot chat and share cat videos. He's always been polite. Then one day I asked hime about something asked me about... I thought it was maybe a native language issue... he blocked my because I scoured through my college books, and research on some of the terms he uses and they aren't real.... he's another circus act like most the YouTubers.
He and other's from YT are unknown the EVERYONE in the real marketing world... not one mention for any of the awards that are out there:
Content Marketing Awards
MarCom Awards
The Drum Awards
B2B Marketing Awards
Digiday Awards
Effie Awards
Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
Hermes awards
AVA Digital Awards
Clio Awards
Webby Awards
"bill" is same difference.
- People Found it challenging... doesn't use real vocabulary much of the time when discussing semantics... just gibberish much of the time.
the photo is from his wall, I gave to AI to add the styling, and yeah it screwed it up.
- Your immorality claims :they've been friends since black hat community that kicked them both
- Credibility.. many are just his VA's and peer reviewd by people that don't know better... no fault of their own
- Sources... I literally had OpenAI do Deep Reasearch for an honest review and it kicked out this... even I was surprised.
- Bias... that's what AI can do.
I had considered adding messages from DMs who were students of his etc.. but I didn't think I needed to... AI summed up what I have been told. I tried to ask him questions in ZimmWriter group one day when he posted something filled with nonsense... he deleted his post and left the group.
I didn't cherry pick, Deep Research did.
I'm not trying to be found or market myself.
Stop by one of my Google Meets sometime, I'd love to engage and have a real conversation. Totally welcome it.
Do you still have koray’s sucuk in your mouth?