I did it once but now I forget.

TOP BAR:  Members > Invite Friends

You can insert their eMail addresses.

I don't mean invite friends! I mean refer a friend!!!

http://www.chess.com/widgets/

On that page you will find different ways to set up referral links/widgets to get credit from anyone that uses that link to sign up for an account.

Also, when signing up, people can just put your username in the referral box.

referral box?

If you look at the top bar on this page, see where it shows

Play - Lear - Read - Forums - Resources - Members.

Point your cursor where it says Members. A drop down box appears. Click where it says Invite Friends.

Enter their email address in the white box area then click on Send Invite.

When you send someone an invite to join the site, they go through a joining process.

At one point during that joining process, they will see a question  "How did you hear about the site".

They must choose the option  'Friend'   then enter your chess.com username.

If they don't do this, or they skip past it, they cannot go back and re-add it later.

If they don't add you as the person who told them about the site, you won't get them as a referral.

If they do add your username as the person who referred them, you will receive a homepage inbox alert message showing they have joined and been added to your friend list, aswell as receiving a referral trophy.

If you didn't receive any alert or trophy, its possible they didn't add your username or didn't add it correctly during their joining process.

This isn't something we can go back and add for you sorry.

If that person upgrades to premium membership (trials not included), you then get 1 month gold membership added to your account. If you're already a premium member, then instead of the gold membership, you get 1 month extra time added onto the one you already have.

thanks a lot

@kohai, don't the referral links on the page I linked to automatically fill in the referral information?

Martin some of those widgets need replacing :( but for a referral they should still work

OK, cool. Thought I would check so I don't give out wrong information

My only two referrals came off one of those links, so I knew they worked in the past.

How do I put a "referral link' on FACEBOOK???

You should be able to just share a link to the site; just be sure to include the code at the bottom of the page I linked above.

So it would look something like this:

www.chess.com?ref_id=XXXXXXX

where the X's are replaced by your ID from that page.