Metadata highlights the important parts of your website that is crucial for performance tracking in technical SEO.

Metadata is indeed essential for technical SEO as it provides critical information about your webpage to search engines and enhances your website's performance tracking. It typically includes elements such as:

1. Title Tag: Represents the title of the webpage, displayed in search engine results and browser tabs. It's important for both SEO and user experience since it informs users of the content they can expect.

2. Meta Description: A brief summary of the webpage content, usually up to 160 characters, that appears under the title in search results. Although it doesn’t directly impact rankings, a well-written meta description can improve click-through rates.

3. Meta Keywords: Although less relevant today, these were used to specify important keywords relevant to the webpage. Most search engines no longer consider them in ranking.

4. Robots Meta Tag: Instructs search engines on how to index and follow links on the webpage. It can prevent indexing of certain pages or manage crawling.

5. Open Graph Tags: Used for social media sharing, determining how your content appears when shared on various platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn.

6. Viewport Meta Tag: Important for responsive design, it ensures proper scaling and responsiveness of the page on various devices.

Tracking and optimizing these metadata elements can improve your site's visibility and performance in search engines, thus playing a crucial role in your technical SEO strategy.