This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by david wyatt
I was digging around some of my old blogs recently and spotted something interesting, well not interesting, but unexplained.
I blog about the Power Platform, a lot, and one of the things I don't blog about is crypto, so I was surprised to see that a few on my blogs had these tags:
- #crypto
- #cryptocurrency
- #bitcoin
- #offers
- #web3
Yep it looks like someone hacked my tags, most likely in conjunction with spam comments to push something dodgy.
I wanted a quick way to check all of my blogs and fix any, and luckily there is a API for that.
As Dev.to is built on Forem it has a robust and open api (No known rate limits and auth only for personal permissions like creating a blog). The docs are great as well, https://developers.forem.com/api/, so it's easy to use.
I used the https://dev.to/api/articles?username= endpoint, with an increased page size using ?per_page=1000
https://dev.to/api/articles?username=wyatt&per_page=1000
This returned the following info per blog:
[
{
"type_of": "article",
"id": 2997601,
"title": "Vibe Coding a Power App the Pro way with Code Apps",
"description": "In a world of new AI tools and rebranding its hard to keep track of everything Microsoft has...",
"readable_publish_date": "Nov 17",
"slug": "vibe-coding-a-power-app-the-pro-way-with-code-apps-56dk",
"path": "/wyattdave/vibe-coding-a-power-app-the-pro-way-with-code-apps-56dk",
"url": "https://dev.to/wyattdave/vibe-coding-a-power-app-the-pro-way-with-code-apps-56dk",
"comments_count": 0,
"public_reactions_count": 20,
"collection_id": 19972,
"published_timestamp": "2025-11-17T06:56:28Z",
"language": "en",
"subforem_id": 1,
"positive_reactions_count": 20,
"cover_image": "https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=1000,height=420,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fgris6a1itt7aydpnzsl3.png",
"social_image": "https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=1000,height=500,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fgris6a1itt7aydpnzsl3.png",
"canonical_url": "https://dev.to/wyattdave/vibe-coding-a-power-app-the-pro-way-with-code-apps-56dk",
"created_at": "2025-11-06T10:59:19Z",
"edited_at": "2025-11-17T06:58:56Z",
"crossposted_at": null,
"published_at": "2025-11-17T06:56:28Z",
"last_comment_at": "2025-11-17T06:56:28Z",
"reading_time_minutes": 7,
"tag_list": [
"powerapps",
"powerplatform",
"vibecoding",
"lowcode"
],
"tags": "powerapps, powerplatform, vibecoding, lowcode",
"user": {
"name": "david wyatt",
"username": "wyattdave",
"twitter_username": "wyattDaveDev",
"github_username": "wyattdave",
"user_id": 653003,
"website_url": "https://powerdevbox.com",
"profile_image": "https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=640,height=640,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F653003%2Ff6da9df7-019e-4189-ab7f-c5c527fe1db6.png",
"profile_image_90": "https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F653003%2Ff6da9df7-019e-4189-ab7f-c5c527fe1db6.png"
}
}
]
So it was relatively easy to throw together a quick site that listed all of my tags from the tag key in the response, and create quick links to them so I can fix them.
The site shows counts of all tags with quick links to a table with the blogs using that tag.
I also chucked in some extra fluff, like a csv download and a couple of charts provided by my favourite chart library chart.js
So if you want a quick way to check for any hacked tags or just to see what you blog about the most (and maybe spot a typo or 2 🤦♂️) you can try the site here: https://powerdevbox.com/subs/devto
You can also throw on a author parameter for quick loading: https://powerdevbox.com/subs/devto?author=wyattdave
I've also raised the issue with dev.to support, but the constant battle against spammers is no easy task.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by david wyatt
david wyatt | Sciencx (2025-11-24T11:44:52+00:00) Dev.to Tag Hacking. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/11/24/dev-to-tag-hacking/
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