No index on subdomains

[Creditsafe]

Hi,

We have a subdomain that is appearing in the search results - I want to hide this as it looks really bad. If I were to add the no index tag to the sub domain would URL would this affect the whole domain or just that sub domain?

The main domain is vitally important - it is just that sub domain I need to hide.

Many thanks

[DennisSeymour]

Andy and Alan covered what you need to do. One more thing to keep in mind, check the traffic, you don't want to lose those spot in the SERPS. You might want to consider fixing up the subdomain if it gets you conversions and traffic.

[AlanMosley]

does the root domain link to the subdomain?

if so then noindex,follow the pages in the subdomain, this will allow link juice to flow back out of the subdomain.
any links pointing to a  nofollow page will waste their link juice

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Nicholas,

You are fine noindexing the subdomain. However, you will need to create a new robots.txt file and place it in the subdomain root for it to work.

-Andy