Link that scrolls to position

Question

Is it possible to create a link to any web page and scroll to the position of the first instance of a block of text?

eg:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/06/google-api-launch-still-months-away/#scrollto"A Google project headed by Vic Gundotra"

and this will scroll to some where half way of the page.

Note: I don't have control over the linked page, it could be any page on the web. Is there any javascript trick that will allow me to do what I described?

Solution 1

I don't have control of the linked page

All you can do is link to an anchor/ID on the page. If the first block of text on the targeted page has an ID attribute, then you can link to that:

wwww.example.com/page.html#blockOfTextID

Solution 2

No, you can only link to parts of the page that already have named anchors on the page.

Link that scrolls to position

Which links to my answer to your question. But only works, because Stack Overflow has HTML like:

<a name="7324427"></a>

Above every answer to make this possible.

Comments

[James]

Is there any javascript trick that will allow me to do what I described?

[James]

I already know this. thanks anyway. the problem is I don't have control over the linked page (it could be any page on the web)

[DA.]

Right. Well, that's all you can do.

[DA.]

It's not your page. Therefore, you can't run any JS on it.

[James]

what about putting it into an iframe and scroll that? is it possible?