How to get values from input types using this.refs in reactjs?

You should avoid ref="googleInput" as it is now considered legacy. You should instead declare

ref={(googleInput) => { this.googleInput = googleInput }}

Inside of your handler, you can use this.googleInput to reference the element.

Then inside of your submitForm function, you can obtain the text value with this.googleInput._getText()

String refs are legacy https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/refs-and-the-dom.html

If you worked with React before, you might be familiar with an older API where the ref attribute is a string, like "textInput", and the DOM node is accessed as this.refs.textInput. We advise against it because string refs have some issues, are considered legacy, and are likely to be removed in one of the future releases. If you're currently using this.refs.textInput to access refs, we recommend the callback pattern instead.

Edit

From React 16.3, the format for creating refs are:

class Component extends React.Component 
{
        constructor() 
        {
            this.googleInput = React.createRef();
        }

        render() 
        {
            return 
            (
                <div ref={this.googleInput}>
                    {/* Details */}
                </div>
            );
        }
    }

getValue: function() {
    return this.refs.googleInput.value;
  }

In case any one is wondering how to implement ref with hooks :

// Import
import React, { useRef } from 'react';


const Component = () => {
    // Create Refs
    const exampleInput = useRef();

    const handleSubmit = (e) => {
        e.preventDefault();
   
         const inputTest = exampleInput.current.value;

     }

    return(
        <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
            <label>
                Name:
                <input type="text" ref={exampleInput} />
            </label>
            <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
        </form>
}

using ref={ inputRef => this.input = inputRef } is considered legacy now. In React 16.3 onwards, you can use the code below,

class MyForm extends React.Component {
    constructor(props) {
        //...
        this.input = React.createRef();
    }

    handleSubmit(event) {
        alert('A name was submitted: ' + this.input.current.value);
        event.preventDefault();
    }

    render() {
        return (
            <form onSubmit={this.handleSubmit}>
                <label>
                    Name:
                    <input type="text" ref={this.input} />
                </label>
                <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
            </form>
        );
    }
}

EDIT: thanks for the comment @stormwild