Can an XML sitemap have Drupal permalink URLs instead of alias URLs?

Question

While the following question is totally general and theoretical, it is based on a more particular case regarding the current development state of the simple_sitmeap module developed for Drupal 8 and aimed to replace the xml_sitemap module for Drupal 7. Please read the current discussion in Drupal.org (starting from comment #3) and then read here below.

Do you think it is dangerous or problematic to send to Google an XML sitemap that contains only (or mostly), permalinks (instead of aliases)?

In Drupal, permalinks look like this. They are also known as "short links". They are used when there is no alias for the page that would create a friendlier looking URL.

http://www.example.com/page/123

An alias URL typically looks like this:

http://www.example.com/page/page-name

The user can manually assign an alias for the page, or install the Pathauto module that generates alias URLs based on the page title. While an alias link might change if the page title changes, the permalink will not.

• If an alias URL exists, it would be desirable to have that friendly URL indexed. If Google indexes the permalink instead, that would be problematic.
• It would be nice if Google uses the permalinks to discover and index the alias URLs.

AFAIK, Google and any other major SE like Bing, always crawls a page and get its alias; I am sure 99% that it will happen this time and the SERP will display aliases, but I can't say for sure given the fact I never sent an XML sitemap that includes permalinks.

Comments update:

1. Closetnoc, I really don't want to do this; It's just that Drupal 8 is very new and the only xml_sitemap module available for it do it because of technical problem that the maintainer didn't have time to solve yet, and for now its the only option.

2. Stephen, I mean that what might appear in the SERP, are permalinks instead of aliases (it's unlikely in about 99% but I can't say for 100% as I never sent a sitemap with permalinks).

3. I can't say if its a redirect in the classic sense of 301's as I know Drupal just does "Aliasing" for each node with an internal Drupal 8 mechanism available under Config > Search & Metadata > URL aliases. Here is an example of the page that lets you do that:

Answer 1

the question and the answer are pretty obvious - there is nothing tricky or ambiguous. Google has some clear sitemap guidelines meaning, that sitemap should contain:

• only urls answering with result code 200 OK,
• only urls which are allowed to be indexed,
• only urls, which are canonical - and this is probably not your case regarding permalinks

Answer 2

Well, I'll give it a shot.

First, to give a definition of sitemap:

A site map (or sitemap) is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for Web design, or a Web page that lists the pages on a website, typically organized in hierarchical fashion.

In theory (and if sitemaps are what they are used to be)

It's not dangerous / problematic to send sitemap that has www.example.com/page/123 instead of www.example.com/page/page-name. You can do whatever you like. But common sense will tell you to go with second option, because /page/123 doesn't mean anything. Page/page-name means something.

Why? Well, let's get another definition:

A Web crawler is an Internet bot which systematically browses the World Wide Web, typically for the purpose of Web indexing (web spidering). Web search engines and some other sites use Web crawling or spidering software to update their web content or indexes of others sites' web content.

So, you've noticed that it's content here that is important. It's on you how you'll build your link. I generally go by logic, but in this particular case, I'd be focused on content that is on my page instead of my link.

It's just link building here.

And please... I just want you to ask you a question regarding your question, and please elaborate in comment. Beacuse, I didn't understand that part.

I never sent a sitemap with permalinks

Are you sure about this statement?