The label on the box
A box can contain a photograph while its label says when it was taken, what format it uses, and who owns it. The photograph is the content; the label is metadata. Digital files, web pages, and datasets can all have these descriptive details.
For a report, metadata might include its title, author, and last updated date. For a dataset, it might explain what each column means or who is responsible for it. A web page can carry a title and description in its HTML. Some details, such as the description, appear in meta tags and may help search engines understand the page.
Why the details matter
Metadata helps people find, sort, understand, and manage information. A team can use it to locate the current report, check when a file changed, or understand a dataset before analysing it. A schema describes a data structure; it can be part of the metadata around a dataset.
Metadata is not always harmless. A photo’s location or a document’s author may reveal personal information, so teams should decide what to keep and share under their data governance rules.