Hi all,

I am trying to set up the referral website URL option in the security settings. My surveys recently got attacked by bots, so I am hoping that requiring participants to come through my website to access the survey will make life a little harder for the bots (in combination with several other security measures). 

For some reason, the referral link function isn’t working and I get the following message when I click on the survey link that’s hosted on my webpage, “...unfortunately, you are not authorised to access this survey”. I turned off all my other security settings and it is the referral link that is causing the problem, the link works when I turn this setting off. I saw a previous post on this forum that said to make sure you are using the exact URL and I am using the exact page link that I see in my header. I have tried all combinations of possible URLs as well (without https, general site name, specific page name) and none of that works. 

I saw some information about referrer policies. So the problem might be that Wordpress (how I made my website) has a referrer policy where the full URL is not being shared with Qualtrics for security reasons. That makes sense and I am currently talking with Wordpress to figure out their policy. However, surely one of the shortened URLs would have worked. If Wordpress doesn’t want to share the specific page that someone is coming from, then surely they would have to share the general website URL (which I have also tried). 

Has anyone experienced a problem like this? I’m wondering if I have some other setting that is interfering with the referral website function or if linking the Qualtrics survey within a specific page nested within a website is causing problems. I have no idea anymore. If anyone has any advice that would be greatly appreciated.