Is Google shutting down SEO?
No. SEO is not dead. SEO is changing because AI search, zero-click results, and new search behaviors are changing how people find information. The fundamentals still matter, but modern SEO now includes brand visibility, content quality, technical health, reviews, authority, and visibility across multiple platforms.
What new company formation says
No. Google has changed how results are presented, which is a different thing, and the vendor market has not behaved like a market being shut down. 86 of the 551 US firms in The Wall that list search engine optimization were founded in 2020 or later.
Founders do not open into a discipline they expect to be switched off. The median founding year across the group is 2013, so this is an established trade with a live intake of new entrants rather than a closing one.
At the other end of the range, 16 of these firms were founded before 2000. That cohort has already worked through several rewrites of how Google presents results, including the ones that were supposed to end the discipline the last three times.
How to use this
Read announcements about SERP features as changes to what a click is worth, not as an end to the work. The practical question is which of your pages earn clicks now that answers appear above them, and that is measurable in your own Search Console within a quarter.
How this was computed. Every figure on this page is counted from The Wall's own directory of approved, US-headquartered, machine-verified-live listings: 3,460 of them in the snapshot captured 2026-09-14. Rates, minimum project sizes, team sizes, founding years and ratings are provider-declared figures published on public profiles. 1,738 of those listings publish a service list, and that field holds at most 4 services per firm, so service counts are counts of what firms name first rather than everything they sell. Percentages of disclosed values exclude listings that publish no figure. Nothing here is modeled or estimated. Sourcing standards: editorial policy.
Why this matters
Google puts this question in People Also Ask for the "seo agency" query, which means buyers are asking it while they shop. The Wall answers it from the directory position: we index 3,460 verified US growth-services vendors across 10 pillars, so the figures above come from those records rather than from a survey.
If you are evaluating vendors in this category, the SEO pillar page carries the full US firm list with rate, team size and headquarters filters.