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Hi Keri,

Thanks for getting back on this.

I was able to make my case, but without the scientific evidence I was looking for.

It turned out that the manual referral system used by the hiring managers of the company has major flaws and is not properly used by most of the managers. That resulted in faulty referral reports to the HQ.

In short they had a bigger problem than the referral question :).

Thanks for your input Keri. Yes I found that page too and it is quite useful to illustrate the case. Too bad it doesn't have any references to research or trusted sources (except one link in the comments to an official Google blog). So my quest for a scientific backup on the claim that referral questions in web forms are unreliable continues...:) C'mon! Who helps me out here?

Thanks for your reply Andre, but this doesn't really get me there.

First of all I'm afraid the client has total control here, so I can't measure for them.

They DO need to ask it, since they also need to track offline sources. But instead of making it a required field before submitting, they could ask it on the 'thank you' page.

So what I really need is convincing proof that asking for sources this way is unreliable and hurts conversion.

This is more of a conversion and usability question than an SEO question.

Does anyone know if there's any comprehensive research about the accuracy of the well-known "How did you find out about us" question in web forms?

I need to convince a customer that they shouldn't put the question in their form, at least not the way they do now.

I hope someone can refer me to a credible online source / article about this subject?