We have run into the same situation as Helene. All the counties we work are on line here in CA and becaues of that our work is down 90%. We have thought of doing them on line and offering much lower rates BUT we can not trust the indexes. We do all our searches at the county clerk office but I usually run the index before going to save some time. We have found to many discrpancies. We always report mistakes we find... and we have checked weeks, months and even a year later finding no corrections. 

As for the gas situation? If they want it on the day we plan to that county we don't charge extra. If they want it in 8 hours or less... we charge them.