I also had problems with this. You need to put the โpublicโ folder in your www directory (or the corresponding public_html folder if you are using a virtual machine). Then you must put the WHOLE application in your var folder in the directory of your choice, let me call it "MySuperCoolFolder". Finally, you need to modify the index.php file. In particular, these two lines.
require __DIR__.'/../bootstrap/autoload.php';
to
require __DIR__.'/../MySuperCoolFolder/bootstrap/autoload.php';
and
$app = require_once __DIR__.'/../bootstrap/app.php';
to
$app = require_once __DIR__.'/../MySuperCoolFolder/bootstrap/app.php';
And that should do it. If that doesn't work. Go to the documentation and use the .htaccess file that they provide. It did the trick for me.
Best of luck!
Link: https://medium.com/laravel-news/the-simple-guide-to-deploy-laravel-5-application-on-shared-hosting-1a8d0aee923e#.nvinp0r3e
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