Definition:
Metadata is a set of structured data that serves to offer information of any kind at a glance.
Table of Contents
What is metadata?
Metadata is information that is used to describe data found on other websites, documents, or files. In other words, metadata is data about data.
They are also presented in internet information objects, to which they grant certain attributes for their detection and classification.
Nowadays it is a fundamental term in digital marketing and search engines, since it involves positioning the contents in the SERPs of the search engines. It is closely linked to SEO.
How to classify them?
As for metadata, we can talk about various types. They can be:
- Descriptive. Whose purpose is to find or understand a source of information.
- Administrative. We can distinguish between:
- Technical metadata, in order to decode and represent files.
- Preservation metadata in order to manage the archives in the long term.
- Rights metadata. That are related to intellectual property rights attached to the content.
- Structural: They are those that give rise to relationships of parts of resources with each other.
- Markup languages. Integrate metadata and markup for other structural or semantic features within the content.
The classes are not mutually exclusive, but rather, on more than one occasion they are shared.
What is Metadata for?
The Metadata has as its primary function to give additional information regarding the resource being consulted. In the end it is a quick extension and full of essential content that helps to better understand other functions or uses that may have what is consulted.
It is full of uses but where more functionality is acquiring is in the subject of search engine positioning. Metadata accompanies search engines and searches. That is why it is essential that companies take it into account when structuring their content, if they have as their ultimate goal to have a greater number of web users.
What is the metadata lifecycle?
Metadata has a life cycle that can be divided into three phases:
- Creation. The time at which the metadata is generated. They can be done in multiple ways from manual as well as automatically or semi-automatically.
- Manipulation. It is the phase where changes are made in certain aspects. This way if the data changes, the metadata must also change and this will develop easily and automatically. It does not always happen in this way, sometimes human help is required to carry out this work.
- Destruction. The last phase of the metadata life. In it the destruction of them is carried out. It is essential to study how it will be carried out. There are multiple ways to do this. Sometimes metadata is deleted at the same time as your resources together. At other times, there are situations where metadata must be retained. The reasons for this can be of various kinds.
Benefits of metadata
As already mentioned in the previous section, in an increasingly digital world more and more data is moving. Companies have been aware of the value they can have for their business. To achieve this goal, it is essential to manage them in an agile and useful way. Hence the importance of metadata.
Metadata helps to organize and classify data, which facilitates its retrieval and with it its analysis, all with the ultimate purpose of being a benefit for the company.
The benefits that we can point out are:
- We can classify the data according to different attributes. Searching for relevant information is easier.
- It can favor when making decisions.
- Proper metadata management can help improve the competitiveness of companies.
- To improve the position in the search engines.
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