Here's an example that shows one way to do this:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7,IE=9" />
<!--The viewport meta tag is used to improve the presentation and behavior of the samples
on iOS devices-->
<meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1,user-scalable=no"/>
<title>Topographic Map</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/arcgis/3.1/js/dojo/dijit/themes/claro/claro.css">
<style>
html, body { height: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 0; padding: 0; }
.esriScalebar{
padding: 20px 20px;
}
#map{
padding:0;
}
</style>
<script type="text/javascript">var djConfig = {parseOnLoad: true};</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://serverapi.arcgisonline.com/jsapi/arcgis/?v=3.1"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
dojo.require("dijit.layout.BorderContainer");
dojo.require("dijit.layout.ContentPane");
dojo.require("esri.map");
var map;
function init() {
var initExtent = new esri.geometry.Extent({"xmin":-122.46,"ymin":37.73,"xmax":-122.36,"ymax":37.77,"spatialReference":{"wkid":4326}});
map = new esri.Map("map",{
extent:esri.geometry.geographicToWebMercator(initExtent)
});
var basemap = new esri.layers.ArcGISTiledMapServiceLayer("http://server.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/World_Topo_Map/MapServer");
map.addLayer(basemap);
//if there are url params zoom to location
var coords, zoomLevel;
var urlObject = esri.urlToObject(document.location.href);
if(urlObject.query && urlObject.query.coords && urlObject.query.zoomLevel){
var coords = urlObject.query.coords.split(',');
var lon = parseFloat(coords[0]);
var lat = parseFloat(coords[1]);
var zoomLevel = parseInt(urlObject.query.zoomLevel);
var point = esri.geometry.geographicToWebMercator(new esri.geometry.Point(lon,lat));
map.centerAndZoom(point,zoomLevel);
}
dojo.connect(map, 'onLoad', function(theMap) {
//resize the map when the browser resizes
dojo.connect(dijit.byId('map'), 'resize', map,map.resize);
});
}
dojo.addOnLoad(init);
</script>
</head>
<body class="claro">
<div dojotype="dijit.layout.BorderContainer" design="headline" gutters="false" style="width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;">
<div id="map" dojotype="dijit.layout.ContentPane" region="center" style="border:1px solid #000;padding:0;">
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
And here's the url param you'd use to enter the location and zoom level: http://localhost/ZoomCoords.html?coords=-117.13,32.82&zoomLevel=8