What Does Metadata Mean?
Metadata is data about data. In other words, it is data that is used to describe another item's content.
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The term metadata is often used in the context of Web pages, where it describes page content for a search engine.
Techopedia Explains Metadata
Metadata is an important tool for improving a Web page's search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines generally use metadata, along with a combination of other factors, to determine what is on a Web page and how relevant that content is to a given search. This data is included in the the meta tags found in a Web page's HTML or XHTML.
Common metadata used by most search engines includes:
- Description: This meta element describes the type of content found on a Web page. For example, the description for this page tells this search engine that the page contains a definition of the term metadata.
- Title: This provides a title for the content on the page, which is shown by search engines in results. For this page, it is: What is Metadata? – Definition from Techopedia.com.
- Keywords: This provides the search engine with additional keywords that are related to the content that's on the page. Whether search engines still use this data is a matter of debate.
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