What screen resolution should I use?

I get this question often. Or variations of it such as "is it safe to expand my site to 1200px now?"

According to W3Scools, as of January of this year, about 13% of all internet users are still on 1024x768, which is a high enough proportion to make me play it safe and set the max width at 980px so that these folks can see the site OK. If you go any higher, these people will have to scroll sideways, which is traditionally a major "no-no" (simply because it's annoying.)

However, you should check your own stats to see what percentage of YOUR visitors have that resolution, because your demographic segment may very well be different from the average.

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CPR for a Yahoo Store on Google's Supplemental Index

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