One SEO professional asked John Mueller about whether adding the location name in the meta description matters for ranking.
John explained that the meta description is primarily used as a snippet in the search results page. This is not something that Google would use for ranking.
He also expounded on this with the fact that “obviously having a good snippet on a search results page can make it more interesting for people to actually visit your page, when they see your page ranking in the search results.”
This happens at approximately the 26:47 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
John (Submitted Question) 26:47
Let me see some other questions I have here: does adding the location name in the meta description matter to Google in terms of ranking, if the quality–content quality is maintained?
John (Answer) 26:58
So the meta description is primarily used as a snippet in the search results page. And that’s not something that we would use for ranking. But obviously having a good snippet on a search results page can make it more interesting for people to actually visit your page, when they see your page ranking in the search results.