Google Instant Preview (Image) - What screen dimension? e.g 1024x768?

Question

I'm wondering what screen dimensions Google Instant Preview takes a snapshot of your website at e.g 1024px x 768px...?

http://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq-instant-previews

FYI: I'm building a "responsive design" layout. Wonder if others like Yahoo or Bing take screenshots? And what dimensions they too use...

Answer 1

After a little bit of testing, the preview appears to use a screen width of around 1000 pixels, so it is very likely it uses 1024 as a base.

I checked Wikipedia, which uses a fluid layout. Judging by the scale of the thumbnail it used around 1000 pixel width (you can check more accurately yourself if you like).

I checked CSS-Tricks.com which uses a responsive layout, and the thumbnail shows the second version down (main content and one column on right). That layout appears in the range 920px to 1200px.

For fixed-width designs, the screenshot is taken at or above the fixed width and cropped to that width. I don't know of a design with a fixed width higher than 1024 but if you do, give it a try!