Question

When I do this,

location.hash = "test"

the url is updated and the page homes in on the element with that id.

Is there a way to stop the page from homing in to that element?

Answer 1

Solution

You cannot prevent this behaviour, but you can fool it by temporarily hiding the target, eg. like that (it has nothing to do with jQuery):

// obtain "target" DOM (not jQuery) element and do this:
var original_id = target.id; // save original ID
target.id = null; // set target's ID
location.hash = 'test'; // issue location.hash change
target.id = original_id; // set ID to original value

Generalized solution

Or more general example:

// make target_hash set to a hash you want to not lead you to page section and:
var element = document.getElementById(target_hash); // find element by ID
var original_id = element.id; // save original ID
location.hash = target_hash; // previously defined by you (eg. 'test')
element.id = original_id; // reset ID

Demo / proof

The live example can be as follows, in the event handler attached through jQuery (demo here: http://jsfiddle.net/DaZfH/):

some_link.on('click', function(event){
    event.preventDefault();
    var target = document.getElementById('target');
    var original_id = target.id;
    target.id = null; // unset ID
    location.hash = 'target';
    target.id = original_id;
});

Disclaimer

But indeed others are right: moving you to the correct place in the document is the correct behaviour. If you are doing things like I mentioned, then your solution is pretty hakish and there is definitely a better way to do that.