Joomla World Conference: Potsdam, 16–18 October
The issue is built around the Joomla World Conference, which takes place from 16 to 18 October 2026 in Potsdam, Germany. In her editorial, The September Issue, Anja de Crom reminds readers that this is "not just a sit-down-and-listen event": it is where the community meets in person, learns, and gets things done together.
Developers can arrive a day early. On Thursday 15 October, the Maintenance Team runs a hands-on Joomla 7.0 sprint at the Kongresshotel Potsdam, focused on removing deprecated and legacy code. In Benjamin Trenkle's words: "We write code. We review code. We delete code." Bring a laptop; the details are in One More Day of Maintenance – Joomla 7.0 Sprint at Joomla World Conference.
The first J!Awards: voting is open until 11 October
Joomla celebrated its 21st birthday on 17 August by launching the J!Awards, the community's first Community Choice Awards. Nominations closed on 13 September with 320 nominations for 194 different entries, and the shortlists are now ready.
Voting runs from 21 September to 11 October 2026 (23:59 UTC) and is open to everyone. The eight categories include favourite Joomla 6 feature, extension, template, hosting, website design and Joomla Magazine article. Winners will be announced live at the conference in Potsdam. Read The J!Awards Nominations Are In — Here's What Happens Next by Cyril Rezé.
Must-reads for site builders
Canonical tags: the SEO checkbox nobody asked for
Brian Teeman takes aim at the habit of adding a self-referencing canonical tag to every page because an SEO plugin says so. His point: a canonical is a hint, not a command, and Google can ignore it. If your site produces duplicate URLs, fix the structure and navigation that create them instead of hiding the problem. Canonicals still have real uses, such as tracking parameters, product variations, legacy URLs and multi-domain setups. Read the article.
Letting the right robots in
Last month the magazine looked at blocking unwanted crawlers. This month Philip Walton covers the opposite: how to make sure AI assistants and search engines can find and cite your Joomla content. The key takeaways:
- Most AI crawlers (such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot) do not run JavaScript, so your content must be in the server-rendered HTML. A quick
curlof your page will show you what they see. - Don't overinvest in
llms.txt; traditional SEO still matters more. - Submit your sitemap to Bing as well as Google and set up IndexNow, because Bing's index feeds several AI search products.
- Joomla 5 and later include Schema.org structured data, but you need to configure it. Set the Base Type in the System – Schema.org plugin.
- Clear writing with citations, quotes and statistics helps visibility. Keyword stuffing does not.
Overriding a subform to build a speaker directory
For developers and template builders, Robin Clapp shows how to override a Joomla subform field layout and turn a plain bullet list into a proper, well-presented speaker directory for an event site. It's a useful technique for any structured content you store in custom fields. Beyond the Bullet List.
Accessibility: from plan to measurable results
Robert Deutz shares two updates on the Joomla Accessibility Project, a 20-month initiative funded by the Sovereign Tech Fund. An independent audit by Axess Lab tested the Atum administrator template, the Cassiopeia frontend template, the Media Manager, the installer and the core editing screens against WCAG 2.2 AA and ATAG 2.0.
The audit found 42 issues (4 critical, 15 serious, 16 moderate and 7 minor), which the report describes as better than average for a project of Joomla's complexity. Keyboard navigation and the Media Manager are the main areas to improve. Next up is Milestone 1b (September–October), which turns these findings into a prioritised remediation plan and a list of quick wins. Read From Planning to Action and The Results of Milestone 1a.
What's happening under the hood
- Additional categories for articles. In One Item, More Than One Place, Google Summer of Code student Reda Mohamed describes his work that lets articles, contacts, banners and news feeds belong to one main category plus several additional ones. It is under review and not yet part of Joomla core, but many site builders have wanted this for a long time.
- AI-assisted translation, with humans in charge. Krishna Gandhi explains how Joomla translators improve AI translations of the documentation: translators review and correct AI drafts side by side, and each approved correction is turned into terminology and style rules that improve the next translations.
- Maintainers wanted. The project is looking for Joomla maintainers: PHP developers who can fix bugs, review contributions and help keep the codebase healthy. You don't need to be a Joomla expert, and extension developers are especially welcome.
- Security reports are not a verdict on you. Allon Moritz of Digital Peak writes for extension developers: Security issues do not tag you as a bad developer. What matters is how you respond.
The people behind Joomla
- The Vice President's Vice President: an interview with Emmanuel Lemor, re-elected Vice President of Open Source Matters.
- Round Two: Richard Gosler on Joomla's Next Chapter: the re-elected Outreach Department Coordinator looks back on his first term and ahead to the next.
- Thank you Hans van der Meer: a tribute to years of work across many Joomla teams.
- Joomla! and Rutgers join forces again: Rutgers University students are researching the Open Source Matters website, and you can volunteer for a 30-minute interview or usability test between 10 September and 10 December 2026.
Read the full issue
Whether you build Joomla sites, develop extensions or just follow the project, there is something here for you. Our top picks are the two SEO articles for site owners and the J!Awards vote for everyone. Voting closes on 11 October.
Read the September 2026 issue of the Joomla Community Magazine →
