I am using digikam under kubuntu 14.04 with backports ppa. I used to geotag pictures with Image->Geotag. In the new version 4.9 this menu option seems to be missing. Has it been moved to a different location or do I need to enable it somewhere in the options? Is someone else experiencing this?

Check in "Settings -> Configure digiKam -> Kipi Plugins" that "GPSSync" is enabled.
Then you should have the option "Geo-location" available from the "Image" menu.

Thanks, this helped! Somehow my kipi-plugins got uninstalled completely(?) Now it works again.