How does google handle mega menus?

[smithaa02]

You know...the dropdown menus that have pictures/signup boxes and other tricks for the top dropdown menu?

We recently upgraded our standard dropdown menu to a megamenu (Ubermenu and shiftnav for mobile...Wordpress plugins) and there did correlate a small drop in rankings.

Is there any reason to believe that mega menus can hurt rankings?

[netmeg]

[webmasterworld.com...]

[webmasterworld.com...]

[webmasterworld.com...]

There's a lot more.

[RedBar]

Is there any reason to believe that mega menus can hurt rankings?

I'll nearly bet G will crucify you if it doesn't work as intended on phones and tablets. I have no direct proof but they have made their intentions clear:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[aakk9999]

Has anybody had any thoughts how Gogole devaluing "hidden" content (discussed here [webmasterworld.com...] and here [webmasterworld.com...] ) would affect mega menus or menus that open on Hover?

So far the opinion was to be careful when using Mega Menus or Menus that open on hover because of the lack of clear focus (see links to old threads that netmeg provided in her post above).

I am wondering whether some aspects of this may have changed now.

@netmeg, since you are using responsive, and responsive (probably?) has this condensed menu, isn't that menu loading up all hierarchies of menu links or have you done it to load up only the first level of main navigation?

[netmeg]

Just the first level on my own sites. We're still tossing possibilities around on a large ecommerce site that one of my clients is taking responsive in 2015, but right now we're leaning towards just the first level there too, and let them hit the category page for the next level.