Should I include already indexed pages in my sitemap.xml?

Question

I'm creating a sitemap.xml for a new website. For now, I am only including pages from our user-generated content system into the sitemap.xml. However there are other pages that are plain-old static html pages and a staff blog built on wordpress. Right now, the important pages from the static html and wordpress blog are already indexed and getting a satisfactory amount of search traffic into them. And I am considering being lazy and leaving them out of the sitemap.xml. One reason I'm hoping that I can allow myself to be lazy is that those pages will not change much and I don't need the changes to be crawled right way

Over time will search engines view the pages not in the sitemap.xml as not as important as the ones that I'm including in the sitemap.xml? I am not indicating any priority for the pages in my sitemap.xml right now, but I may later on.

I already read this post which advises that all pages be included in the sitemap: In a sitemap, is it advisable to include links to every page on the site, or only ones that need it? I'm wondering if I can punt on getting everything in as long as those pages not in the sitemap aren't thought of as less important than the pages included in sitemap.xml.

Answer 1

You don't have to put the pages in the sitemap if you aren't interested in their index status and as you say, changes are few. Search engines will consider your important pages to be what people are visiting/browsing more than what is or isn't in a sitemap.