From Learning to Visibility: DIAMETER Releases SEO Plugin for ILIAS LMS

From Learning to Visibility: DIAMETER Releases SEO Plugin for ILIAS LMS

The DIAMETER project has reached a new milestone in building a sustainable, open, and unified digital infrastructure. We're proud to announce the release of the first SEO plugin for ILIAS LMS, specifically developed to make the platform's public-facing pages indexable and structured for search engines.

One Platform, Two Functions: Learning and Communication

At the core of this development is DIAdemia—an ILIAS-based learning management system selected as the foundation for DIAMETER's educational mission.
Designed to host comprehensive training on circular manufacturing, digital tools, and sustainable innovation, DIAdemia is more than a traditional LMS.

In an innovative strategic decision, the consortium also adopted DIAdemia to power the public-facing website of the project.
This bold move creates a single platform that supports both educational delivery and institutional communication, reducing technological fragmentation and reinforcing message consistency.

What the SEO Plugin Does

While ILIAS is a mature and powerful LMS, it was not originally built with public web indexing in mind. Our custom SEO plugin addresses this by adding:

• SEO-friendly, readable URLs
• Custom meta title and description fields
• Canonical tag and index/follow controls
• Auto-generated XML sitemap, refreshed via cron
• Redirect management and permalink version tracking

At the same time, non-public pages remain protected with automatic noindex, nofollow metadata to prevent unwanted indexing.

LMS to CMS? Not Quite—but Getting Closer

The private learning environment remains untouched. However, with this plugin, the public sections of the platform—such as news, institutional content, and project highlights—can now be structured like a lightweight CMS.

This approach enables DIAMETER to:

• Avoid duplicating platforms or tools
• Ensure continuity between education, dissemination, and visibility
• Maintain a single, secure, and open-source infrastructure for both content delivery and communication

It's a step toward a coherent, manageable digital ecosystem, aligned with the project's commitment to long-term sustainability.

Just the Beginning

This release is the first step in a broader journey. Upcoming developments include:

• Enhancing the editorial interface for content authors
• Exploring integration with tools like Google Tag Manager
• Evaluating the use of structured data (schema.org JSON-LD) to enable rich snippets in search results

Each of these efforts supports a vision of a flexible, transparent, and future-ready platform, rooted in open technologies and designed for post-project continuity.

Supporting the SDGs

This work also supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly:

• SDG 4 – Quality Education: by facilitating open access to technical knowledge
• SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure: by advancing open digital tools for smart manufacturing
• SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production: by sharing insights and promoting sustainable practices

Want to explore more? Visit www.diameter-eu.org to see the platform and follow our progress.