Q: i dont see my contacts on my icloud why would they not have backed up

If you mean you have contacts on a computer or device that is now logged into icloud, and you used a browser to log into icloud.com and can't find those contacts there - is it possible that the contacts on the device/computer is listed under the "On my mac" or some such group and not in the "icloud" group?  only data in the iCloud group will sync to icloud.