Question

Why does the following code make the scroll jump to the top of the page?

window.location.hash = '' 

Is there a way to empty it without jumping to the top of the page?

Answer 1

window.location.hash keeps track of the current anchor position on the page. When you set it to be an anchor, the page will automatically go to that anchor. When you remove it, the page will go to ‘blank’ which is the top of the page!

To get around this do the following:

var scrollPosition = document.documentElement.scrollTop;
window.location.hash = '';
document.documentElement.scrollTop = scrollPosition;