Warning- may be a dumb question

I know this may seem obvious, but I am trying to understand this plug in better.

If the sitempap is submitting, hypothetically 3,084 URLs, that is the most we can hope for getting indexed, right?

The Sitemap appears to fluctuate...more so then my content is changing. This was earlier, but I had a first day with 2198, then the next with 993 . Does this mean that the Sitemap sometimes misses content, or is somedays better at "finding URLs." ....

What I am trying to get a grasp on is the folks who are reporting x number of threads, and x numbers of pages indexed, and then later a huge jump....is this a function of sitemap getting the URLs to the SEs...I am thinking there is a relationship between vBSEO product and sitemap generator. CRUs makes it "easier to see" the importance of the URLs, so that helps SE decide to index it...if I am thinking about this right....but Sitemap also says "hey, SE, look right here...an updated URL". Am I getting this right? So, if so, Sitemap should be the upper end of what you can expect for indexed pages? Or am I completely hosed up? Thanks for taking time so I understand this!

Ok, it may have been dumb, but maybe not. Does anyone know? Any response is appreciated.

if your sitemap seems short some days, its probably fialing to finish executing. try upping the php memory limit and max_execution time timeout settings in php.ini

Briansol, thanks for the reply. Yeah, it only happened a few times, I was just trying to figure out how the sitemap functions and what that variance means. Got that part now...

So, I take it that means that the best I can do for indexed pages is the number of URLs submitted.

Not necessarily... the sitemap is merely a SUGGESTION for google. They may hit every link, they may hit a few... it's entirely up to them.

along the same lines, there's probably several pages on your site that aren't part of your sitemap, say, an advertising page, or a contact page of some sort