The effect of light absorption by sample in the analysis of Makerfringe data for estimating a second-order nonlinear coefficient hasbeen studied experimentally. Two theories, one by Jerphagnon andKurtz that neglects the absorption effect and one by Herman and Haydenthat takes into account the absorption effect, were compared with theexperimental results. It was found that Jerphagnon and Kurtz'sformula was unable to predict correctly not only the magnitude but alsothe incident angle dependence or the sample thickness dependence of thesecond harmonic signal generated by the sample with strong absorption, whereas the theory by Herman and Hayden was able to make thosepredictions fairly well. It was also found that the error in theestimated nonlinear coefficient when one uses Jerphagnon and Kurtz'sformula could be as large as 2-4 times the true value, depending onsample thickness.