Is there a new standard web page width? How many pixels?

Question

I am just building a new site for a client and want to make sure I serve him best. I am at the process of determining the page width.

First, for the last few years, my pages have been typically about 900 pixels wide and centered in the middle of the browser window. This works really well. That's not the approach I am taking now though. My old standard of 900-1000 pixels seems really small on today's monitors.

I am creating a three column page layout. The leftmost column needs to stick to the left side of the browser. If the browser is set really wide, there is a huge vertical dead zone on the right side of the browser. That's not really a problem since I doubt most people open their browser to 100% wide on a 1600px monitor.

My question is this: Is there a standard pixel width that you assume 90% of the people use to view a web site?

Answer 1

960 pixels!

It has plenty of denominations to allow you to split your page up into various columns. I suggest taking a look at http://960.gs

I know, as you said that it is small compared to your monitor, however there are a lot of users (the majority) who would benefit from keeping this resolution.

Answer 2

You can also consider using a so called "responsive" approach:

http://978.gs/

The idea is that using media queries (and substitute techniques) you adapt your layout to the viewport of your visitor, so ideally you can offer the best content to everyone.