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What is the difference: Tags & Metadata

by ActionToCash
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello Warriors,

I have spent a bit of time doing Google searches trying to figure out what the difference is between Tags & Metadata, and am still confused...

As I understand it Tags provide a basic 'card catalogue' of keywords related to my article content so that when users do an internal search for example they will find such terms.

When I search for information about MetaData I keep finding information about how it is 'data about data', which is fine when considering somthing such as a digital video which has copyright information and author information etc. But that doesn't seem to agree with the way that I understand people use MetaData for articles etc.

Unless I'm missing something in general practice these two terms seem to normally be filled out almost interchangeable and online marketers fill out both of these data fields with 'Tag' / card catalogue style information. Maybe I'm wrong and people are putting their names etc in the Metadata information, but truthfully I don't think think thats the case.

I realize that 'metadata' is incorporated into the header of a webpage through a tag (i.e. the meta-tag), but I don't think that is supposed to be the same thing as a 'tag' that is commonly added to articles. As embarrassing as it may sound I generally thought these were the same thing but am now finding out that they are likely not since the K2 Joomla plugin that I am using seems to provide separate fields for these two separate paramaters.

If I'm wrong, and the 'metadata' is supposed to be filled out the same as the 'tag' information please let me know, but I am thoroughly confused at this point and would greatly appreciate your guidance or a link to a good resource that will set my understanding strait...

Thank you & sorry for such a long post,

Randall
#difference #metadata #tags
  • Profile picture of the author subashchandrapoudel
    Meta data means a brief description of your content
    but meta tags means a list of tags or words which are related to your content.
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    • Profile picture of the author scott g
      Web pages often include metadata in the form of meta tags. Description and keywords meta tags are commonly used to describe the Web page's content. Most search engines use this data when adding pages to their search index.
      -Wiki for Metadata

      Why are you so worried/concerned about what is and isn't considered "metadata." Meta tags are metadata. If you want to link to the middle of a page and you use the "#" (hash) symbol... That's metadata.

      HTML Code:
      <meta name="Description" content="" />
<meta name="Keywords" content="" />
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta name="Distribution" content="Global" />
<meta name="Author" content="" />
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="" />
<meta name="y_key" content="" />
<meta name="msvalidate.01" content="" /> 
<meta name="alexaVerifyID" content="" />
<meta name="Robots" content="index,follow" />

<a href="yourcase.html#middle">Go To Middle</a>

<a name="middle"><center></a>
      I don't know if this really helps or answers your question... I'm not sure what else your question is though...
      Signature
      scott g
      "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve."
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  • Profile picture of the author Kev Stevenson
    Hi Randall,
    I'm not familiar with Joomla but in Wordpress tags (not metatags) are similar to categories...

    So a post/article about cabbages might have the tag 'leafy green vegetables'.
    A post/article about carrots might have the tag 'root vegetables'.


    What Scott illustrated above are metatags which are unique to an individual page.

    A tag would group pages together...

    e.g I have some posts on one of my blogs about
    1. winter gloves
    2. winter boots
    3. winter trousers

    All are categorised under the tag 'winter clothing' but all have individual metatags

    K
    Signature

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