Methods, systems, apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage medium, for a bottom-up approach for generating high-quality content streams. In one aspect, the method includes actions of obtaining data identifying a plurality of content items, generating a plurality of queries for the particular topic, and for each query of the plurality of queries: obtaining a set of search results for the query that identify content items identified in the obtained data, and determining, from the search results for the query, a respective quality score for each of one or more quality characteristics. The method may also include actions such as identifying one or more first high-quality queries from the plurality of queries based on the respective quality scores for the one or more quality characteristics, and populating a stream of content for display on the user device using search results for the one or more first high-quality queries.