Canonical URL's searchable in Google?

[Jenny1]

Hi - we have a newly built site using Drupal, and Drupal likes to create canonical tags on pretty much everything, from their /node/ url's to the URL Alias we've indicated. Now, when I pull a moz crawl report, I get a huge list of all the /node/ plus other URL's. That's beside the point though...

Question: when I directly enter one of the /node/ url's into a google search, a result is found. Clicking on it redirects to the new URL, but should Google even be finding these non-canonical URL's?? I don't feel like I've seen this before.

[DonnaDuncan]

I'm not understanding. Is the URL Alias a canonical or a redirect?

If it is canonical, then Google should not redirect but stay on the URL you've entered into the address bar. It may or may not show up in search results. The canonical is telling Google that your preference is to have only the Alias indexed but it's okay to have visitors land and stay on the original URL. Google treats it as a preference, not a directive, meaning it may or may not respect your wishes.

If the alias is a redirect, then when you enter the first URL into the address bar you should be automatically redirected to the second. Only the 2nd will be indexed and show up in search results. If Google is finding those, perhaps they were indexed at one time and still haven't fallen out. I'd also check the sitemap to see if they're listed there.

Hope that helps.