Technically, it doesn't matter where you declare the <f:metadata> in the view as long as it's in the top level view (so, when using templating, in the template client and thus not in the master template). When the view get built, the metadata is basically not part of the JSF component tree, but of the view root (which you can obtain on a per-view basis by ViewDeclarationLanguage#getViewMetadata()).
Most self-documenting would be to put the <f:metadata> in the top of the view, so that you can see any metadata at first glance without the need to scroll to halfway or bottom the view source code.
When using a plain page, just put it right before the <h:head>.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
>
<f:metadata>
<f:viewParam name="userId" value="#{bean.userId}" />
<f:viewParam name="startRecord" value="#{bean.startRecord}" />
<f:viewParam name="pageSize" value="#{bean.pageSize}" />
<f:viewParam name="sort" value="#{bean.sort}" />
</f:metadata>
<h:head>
...
</h:head>
<h:body>
...
</h:body>
</html>
When using templating, the recommended approach, as stated in the <f:metadata> tag documentation, would be to declare a separate <ui:insert name="metadata"> in the master template and let the client define the <f:metadata> in an <ui:define name="metadata">.
<ui:composition template="/WEB-INF/pattern.xhtml"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
>
<ui:define name="metadata">
<f:metadata>
<f:viewParam name="userId" value="#{bean.userId}" />
<f:viewParam name="startRecord" value="#{bean.startRecord}" />
<f:viewParam name="pageSize" value="#{bean.pageSize}" />
<f:viewParam name="sort" value="#{bean.sort}" />
</f:metadata>
</ui:define>
<ui:define name="content">
<h1>Data Table</h1>
...
</ui:define>
</ui:composition>
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