Short answer
Usually one of: a competitor's page was judged a better match and took the snippet, your content or page structure changed in a way that made it less snippet-friendly, the query's snippet was removed entirely in favour of another SERP feature, or your ranking for the underlying term dropped (a page generally needs to be ranking well to hold a snippet at all).
A page generally needs to be ranking well (commonly, though not strictly, within the top few organic results) to hold a featured snippet at all — if your overall ranking for the term dropped, losing the snippet is often a downstream symptom rather than a separate problem. keyword research and rank tracking tracks your organic Google ranking for every keyword you monitor, so you can check directly whether the underlying position moved.
Featured snippets are re-evaluated on an ongoing basis, and a competitor publishing a more concise, more directly-structured, or more current answer to the same query can take over the snippet even without your own ranking changing much. Searching the term and comparing the new snippet holder's content structure against your own page is the direct way to check this.
A redesign, a content update, or a change to how a page's headings and paragraphs are structured can inadvertently make a previously snippet-friendly page less so — snippets favour clear, direct, concisely-structured answers near the top of relevant content. Comparing an archived version of the page (via a web archive tool) against the current version can reveal an unintentional structural regression.
Google doesn't guarantee a snippet stays present for a given query indefinitely — sometimes a snippet is removed from a SERP altogether in favour of a different feature (a knowledge panel, an AI-generated overview, or simply reverting to a standard list of organic results) rather than being won by a competitor. Checking whether any snippet at all currently appears for the term clarifies which scenario applies.
Snippet ownership can shift back and forth between pages over time as Google continues re-evaluating the best match for a query, sometimes without any clear external trigger. If your ranking and content are both still strong, it's worth checking again after some time rather than immediately overhauling a page that may regain the snippet on its own.
Not necessarily #1, but generally within the top organic results — Google most commonly draws snippets from pages already ranking well for the term, though it's not a strict, publicly documented rule tied to an exact position.
Not directly — snippet status and regular organic ranking are related but distinct; losing the snippet by itself doesn't automatically mean your underlying ranking dropped, though the two often move together since ranking well is generally a prerequisite for holding a snippet.
It depends on the term's value to you — for a high-value query, restructuring content to be more directly and concisely answer-focused can improve your odds, though there's no guaranteed technique that wins a snippet back on demand.
Not specifically — Illumae tracks your organic ranking positions, which can indicate an underlying ranking change, but it doesn't have a dedicated alert for snippet ownership changes specifically. Checking the actual search result directly is the most reliable confirmation.
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