Metadata is data about other data. Metadata provides information about data and makes finding and working with particular instances of data easier. Common web metadata is OpenGraph and JSON-LD metadata.
What is metadata?
Metadata is data about other data. Metadata provides information which can be descriptive, structural, or administrative. Metadata is used in the discovery, identification, categorization, and management of data. Common web metadata is OpenGraph and JSON-LD metadata.
Why is metadata important?
Metadata lets your site talk to other systems like search engines and analytics tools. For SEO, metadata is required to perform well and look good on the SERP. For analytics, metadata enables data drill-downs and investigations that would not otherwise be possible.
How does metadata work?
Metadata is created alongside the data it relates to. For web pages, metadata comes through tags in the HTML. Common meta tags include the title tag, the description tag, JSON-LD structured data, OpenGraph og: tags, and Parse.ly meta tags. Search engines and Parse.ly then read these meta tags for their systems.
Metadata and Parse.ly
Parse.ly uses the metadata to supercharge web and content analytics. With Parse.ly, analyze your content with views for content attributes like publish date, content type, word count, author, section, tags, referrers, subject, and path. These content groupings combine with over 40 content metrics to provide complete understanding of content performance.
Metadata examples
Content metadata examples include:
- Title and description tags for SEO and search results
- Parse.ly meta tags for Content Recommendations or Dashboarding
- JSON-LD scripts for Google’s Rich Results
- OpenGraph tags for Facebook card embeds
- Twitter tags for Twitter card embeds
- Canonical URL tags for web crawlers
General metadata examples include:
- How the data was created
- Time and date of creation
- Creator or author of the data
- Data quality
- Source of the data
- The process used to create the data