how do you know when a group's been deleted?does it just not show up when you research it???? O_O

Depends if the club as been properly keyworded or not. If the club hasn't been keyworded then it won't show up when you search anyway.

But if you could previously find it by searching and then all of a sudden you can't anymore, then it will have been deleted.

You should check your clubs too, just to make sure.