What we mean by meta data is that meta data or metadata is "data about data".
The meaning of metadata is "data about data".
Metadata is basically "data about data" that describes, explains, locates or otherwise makes it easier to find and manage an information resource.
The metadata also provides structure and context, such as an author of a document, the date of a photo or even the file type of a digital asset.
Without the metadata, a data set can be impossible to use or even confusing to use.
The types of metadata are descriptive metadata, structural metadata and administrative metadata.
Descriptive metadata, is a type of metadata that provides basic information to identify and describe a resource like it's title, keywords, author and abstract.
Structural metadata is a type of metadata, which shows how a resource is organized and it's structure, like the order of pages in an e-book or even the tables that are in a database.
And administrative metadata, is a type of metadata that includes technical and rights information, like file type, creation date, usage rights, access controls and ownership.
Examples of metadata include.
In webpages, metadata that is used in HTML tags, such as title and description tags, helps the search engines like Google to understand and rank a website's content.
In emails, the metadata includes the sender, the recipient, the subject line and the date and the time the message was sent.
In photo's a digital photo contains metadata like the me and date that the photo was taken, the camera model and GPS location.
And in books, the meta data includes the title, author, publisher and publication date, which are all metadata that help you find an understand a book.