Alexa uses results from this Toolbar technology to determine site popularity.

In my view, Alexa works very well for reporting information about general web surfer browsing habits for popular topics such as books, online dating and even Elvis Presley (today's current feature on their website). If your industry players do not have the Toolbar client installed on their machines, then their clicks (traffic) are not recorded.

Alexa's numbers for internet traffic and site popularity hinges on the notion that the surfer's internet browser has the Alexa Toolbar installed. This is both Alexa's strength and its weakness.

Do you have the Toolbar downloaded? I bet no. I do not and many PostOnce members do not either. This is because experienced web surfers resist having their web movements tracked for privacy reasons and would therefore not knowingly install this type of software.

So the Alexa results for internet traffic and site popularity are not representative of the activity in the Recruiting industry. One could also say that Alexa internet traffic and site popularity data is best used when evaluated in the context of a mythical general web surfer browsing general purpose topics.

If you are looking for internet traffic and site popularity data, but still are not convinced that toolbar technology is only general purpose, then at least consider also using the Google Toolbar. Google is very popular with experienced surfers and is after all a search engine and runs under more than just Windows. (Alexa Toolbar does not yet support the Mac or Unix.)

Even better, the tools I use for recruiting industry research on internet traffic and site popularity are the search engines themselves (everybody uses these).