Metadata is a relatively simple term that’s a bit tricky to describe. You already know what data is, meaning information. In the computer world, metadata describes that information. Simply put its information about information.

Using an example from the literary world, let’s take a common word like duck and define it; a bird that is common to water. If this were to translate to metadata, duck would be the data and the definition would be metadata in that it describes the data.

Earlier we talked about the invisible text on your website that is seen by the search engines but now by the viewer. Metadata is what the invisible text consists of.

If you remember, search engine spiders are blind to JavaScript. When many business owners designed their websites, they designed it with the viewer in mind, including documents in the form of PDF files, PowerPoint and Excel.

These were formatted in non-HTML code because while it’s great that they designed a user focuses site, they did not design it for the search engine spiders to find.

Search engine spiders may not be readily able to see non-HTML code but they can read metadata descriptions. So if you include non-HTML coded content on your site then you have to go a step further and include descriptions of it so that the search engine spiders can read it and determine its relevance to the search.

In order to help the spiders, as well as yourself, you need to add what’s known as meta tags to your non-HTML coded content, which will explain to them what that content consists of.

A good example to use would be the keywords contained on your site. Let’s say that your keywords are Houses for Sale, Homes for Sale and Home Sales.

To let the search engines know what your keywords are without putting on your site, “ATTENTION SEARCH ENGINE SPIDERS: MY KEYWORDS ARE HOUSES FOR SALE, HOMES FOR SALE AND HOME SALES”. Instead, embedded in your source code where the human eyes can’t see it but the spiders can, will be written:”

Encoding it this way offers a description for the search engine spiders to read and make a note of the keywords that your page is about. Keep in mind that you still have to use these keywords heavily in your site so that the spiders will make note of their relevance to your site.

It’s important to note here that not all search engines still support metatags, still it can’t hurt to include them to garner the attention of the ones that still do.

Metatags should be used to in several important places. Because it would take another book to explain all of the intricacies of meta tag coding, you should consult with your IT person or website designer and have them code it correctly.

Meta tag descriptions should be used in the title of the page, the file name, large font text and at the very least the first 60 characters of text on any document.

Here’s where I give you friendly words of caution. Whenever a good thing comes along, there’s always going to be someone who tries to take advantage of it and spoils is for the people who prefer to do the right thing.

As I mentioned earlier, meta tags are not recognized by as many search engines as they used to be. The reason for this is because of those nefarious site owners who realized that they could stuff keywords in the invisible text.

Meta tags used to be one of the prime sources of information that search engines used to determine a page’s relevance and to rank it. Because of that, there were site owners who would try to buck the system by repetitiously adding keywords to the meta data.

The search engine spiders, being mere robots, would see all the keywords and rank the page higher than it should have been. Spiders may not be that smart but their human programmers are and they realized what was going on.

To combat it, they programmed the spiders to look for excessive amounts of keywords and instructed them to devalue the page. Some search engines have stopped using meta tags to determine a site’s relevance entirely.

Despite that, it still doesn’t hurt to include them in your site for the few search engines that do still recognize them. Just don’t make the mistake of repeating them over and over again in the invisible text.

The search engine spiders will have no problem with relegating your page to the abyss of non recognized sites.