NOINDEX, FOLLOW pages in the sitemap?

[1script]

I've been perusing [sitemaps.org...] for a clue on what type of URL I should include in the sitemap but found nothing. Having no official advise on the matter, what do you guys have in your sitemaps? I mean, on any given site there can easily be 10-20% more pages with legitimate URLs other than just your content pages. There are category, tag pages etc. I tend to NOINDEX,FOLLOW those pages but I still would like G*bot to collect those pages for internal links. Seems like including them in the sitemap is the way to help G*bot.

So, what's the collective wisdom of this group: should I include those auxiliary pages (including those NOINDEX ones) into sitemap or leave only content pages in?

[tedster]

If it's "noindex,follow" then it might make some sense. If it's "noindex,nofollow", then I wouldn't bother.

It sounds like these pages may be well linked internally. And in that case, the question is probably not worth any energy.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

You should include all the pages in your sitemap file except the ones having "noindex,nofollow" or blocked by robots.txt

[1script]

Thank you for your input guys! I think I'd like to develop this theme a little more because indexing is probably the most important ranking factor (can't rank until indexed) and so it appears to be an important detail to get it right.

@tedster:

It sounds like these pages may be well linked internally. And in that case, the question is probably not worth any energy.

Some of the URLs are well linked, some aren't which is how the question of including them into sitemap came about. As far as justification of time spent, since the only meaningful way to make a sitemap is to do it automatically, any results other than negative can be justified, so I'd be willing to spend time on it unless of course, it will hurt rather than help.

@AnkitMaheshwari:

You should include all the pages in your sitemap file except the ones having "noindex,nofollow" or blocked by robots.txt

This is a pretty categorical statement which I would like to fashion into a side discussion: how bad / good / indifferent it is to have a significant number of legitimate URLs on a site not included in any sitemap? And, again, since you cannot cram all your internal links onto the homepage, some of those URLs will be well linked, some worse, and some are probably terribly badly linked (5-6 or more levels down)

Thanks!