Drupal deployment workflow
The most important concept: Drupal treats these as different layers.
- Internal route: permanent content identity; example: /node/42
- Path alias: human-friendly name; example: /es/el-sermon-de-la-montana
- Redirect: sends an old request elsewhere; example: old alias → new alias
- Canonical tag: indicates the preferred URL for search engines; example: link rel="canonical"
- Sitemap: supports search-engine discovery of URLs; example: /sitemap.xml
An alias is not a redirect, and a canonical tag does not redirect visitors.