In Ohio, the recorder is covered by a $2000.00 bond, and that is the extent of their liablilty in the event that something is misindexed.  For that reason we often use a local database, Recodat,  that covers the last 25-30 years as backup for the county records.  Many of the larger companies and underwriters in our area use the database almost exclusively.  I have found as many errors in the county records as in the recodat system.  Recodat allows the ablility to search by the legal, while the local records are limited to grantor/grantee.  The county added the ability to search by legal eight years ago, but the system is vastly inferior to the one offered by Recodat.
My only point is, things are different everywhere.  In Texas, it seems you can hold the county liable for misindexing, in Ohio the liability is severly limited.  In some areas the online companies do a lousy job of indexing, in others they are better than the county.  Recodat has just signed a management agreement with Data Trace to take over the operation of their system, it will be interesting to see if they have the same quality.
When we run something using the Recodat system, because of the complexity of the party in title, we always attach the printout, and let the client know that we relied on recodat.  I have been advised that this disclosure absolves me of liablity for recodat errors.