Width and Height of Popular Websites

I have heard on many occasions that graphic designers now use 1024 x 780 as the standard browser dimensions when designing for the web. I have no idea if this is true or not, so I performed a quick study.

During my recon mission, I resized my browser to 1024×780, and used Kevin Freitas’ MeasureIt Firefox extension to record the width of some of the most trafficked web properties in the United States. Here is what I found:

• Yahoo: 950 pixels
• Myspace: 800 pixels
• YouTube: 874 pixels
• Facebook: 800 pixels
• EBay: 930 pixels
• Wikipedia: 986 pixels
• MSN: 770 pixels
• AOL: 960 pixels
• Amazon: 983 pixels
• ESPN: 990 pixels
• The New York Times: 972 pixels
• Veoh: 972 pixels

I am not sure if these statistics reveal much of anything, but it has to be noteworthy that 6 out of the 12 sites fall between 950 and 990 pixels in width.